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BR  121  .S84  1891  c.2 
Sterrett,  James  Macbride, 

1847-1923. 
Reason  and  authority  in 

religion    ^^^  « 


BY 

Studies 

THE  SAME  AUTHOR, 

in  Hegel's  Philosophy 

of  Religion. 

WITH    AN 

APPENDIX   ON    CHRISTIAN 

UNITY. 

Price,     .     .     .     $2.00. 

REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 


RELIGION 


BY  f 

J.    MACBRIDE^STERRETT,    D.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF    ETHICS    AND   APOLOGETICS    IN    SEABURY 
DIVINITY   SCHOOL 


NEW  YORK 
THOMAS  WHITTAKER 

2   AND    3    BIBLE    HOUSE 
189I 


Copyright  1891, 
BY  J.   MACBRIDE  STERRETT. 


TO 


ittott)cr 


THE 

FIRST   REASONABLE   AUTHORITY  IN   RELIGION. 


PREFACE. 


Current    discussions    of    contemporary 
religious  themes  and  thinkers. 

J.   MACBRIDE  STERRETT. 

Faribault,  Minn., 

October,  1890. 


CONTjElN^TS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  GROUND  OF  CERTITUDE  IN  RELIGION. 
PART   I. 

Reason  and  Authority  in  Religion. 

PAGE 

Discredit  of  Old  Authorities 15 

The  Function  of  Criticism 16 

Theories  of  Society  Supplanting  Theories  of 

the  Individual 20 

Danger  of  Weak  Romanticizing 22 

The  Right  of  Private  Judgment 25 

Ground  and  the  "  Urgrund  "  of  Religion  ...  27 

Religion  Genuinely  Human 30 

What  is  Religion  ? 31 

Revelation , .  32 

Faith 34 

Sub-personal  Conceptions  of  the  First  Prin- 
ciple   36 

The  Ultimate  Conception  of  the  First  Prin- 
ciple   38 

Religion  Has  a  History 41 


X  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

"I Believe  "  implies  a  "  They  Believed  "  and 

a  "  We  Believe  " 43 

What  Do  I  Believe  ? 44 

Why  Do  I  Believe  the  Cathohc  Faith  ? 45 

PART  n. 
The  Psychological  Forms  of  Religion. 

Three  Chief  Forms  :  Feeling,  Knowing  and 

Willing 49 

1.  Religion  as  Feeling 50 

3.  Religion  as  Knowing 53 

(a)  That  of  Conception 53 

The  Catechetical   and  Dogmatic  Pe- 
riod   56 

(5)  Reflection,  Criticism  and  Doubt 60 

Saintly  Doubt 61 

Sinful  Doubt 65 

Faith  as  the  Ground  of  Much  Skepti- 
cism    66 

Religious  Knowledge  Conditioned  by 

the  Incarnation 68 

(c)  Comprehension  the   Highest  Form  of 

Knowing 69 

The  Function  of  Philosophy 71 

The  Necessity  of  Religious  Certitude..  75 

Philosophy  of  History 78 

Philosophy  of  Religion 79 


CONTENTS..  xi 

PAGE 

Modern  Thought  as  Christian  Thought 81 

Use  of  the  Nicene  Symbol 83 

Non-CEcumenical  Theology  and  Theories...  84 

The  Law  of  Liberty  also  the  Law  of  Duty. . .  85 

The  "  Must"  of  the  Bible 86 

Open  Questions 90 

Inadequacy  of  Mere  Theoretical  Knowledge.  93 


PART    III. 

Beligion  as  Willing. 

This  Rome-element  Records  Its  Creed  in  Its 

Deed 96 

The  Moral  Argument  for  Christianity 97 

Instituted  Christianity — the  Kingdom  of  God  99 
Mechanical  and  Ethical  Conceptions  of  the 

Church 99 

The  Church  and  the  State 100 

Greek,   Roman  and  Germanic  Elements  in 

Modern  Christianity 102 

The  Christian  Consciousness  and  Authority.  104 

Self-Consciousness  and  Certitude 107 


COATENTS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION. 

PAGE 

Two  Notable  Books  on  Authority  in  Re- 
ligion      109 

The  Authors  of  the  *'  Lux  Mundi " Ill 

How  Influenced  by  German  Criticism  and 
Philosophy,  by  Prof.  T.  H.  Green,  and  the 
Oxford    Heg-elianism. —  Their   Appeal    to 

Reason 114 

The  Divine  Immanence 117 

The  Historical  Method 119 

"  Open  Questions  "  Granted 127 

Dr.    Martineau's    Previous    Works ;    Their 

Character  and  Style 129 

His  Bald  Individualism 134 

His  Critical  Method  and  Negative  Results. . .     146 
Criticism  of  His  Book  by  Contrast  with  the 

*'LuxMundi" 150 

Bouleversment  of  this  Party's  Method 154 

These    New    Leaders    Change    It    from    a 

"  Party  "  into  a  ''  School  of  Thought " 158 

Their  Adoption  of  Hegelian  Conceptions  of 
Rationality,  Revelation  and  Authority. ...     164 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

PAGE 

Two  Criticisms  of  Their  Work 178 

(1)  Their  Conception  of  the  Church  too 

Insular  to  be  Quite  CathoHc 178 

(2)  The  Danger  of  Our  Uncritical  Restor- 

ation of  So-called  Catholic  Customs, 

or  the  Vagaries  of  Ritualism 183 

Welcome  Their  Spirit  and  Method,  if  not  all 
of  Their  Results 183 


OHAPTEE  I. 


THE  GROUND  OF  CERTITUDE  IN  RELIGION. 


PART  I. 

REASON  AND  AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION. 

Discredit  of  Old  Authorities. 

"  Father,  don't  you  know  that  we  left 
that  word  '  must '  behind  when  we  came  to 
this  new  country?"  This  was  Patrick's 
reply  to  a  priest,  who  said  that  he  7nust  take 
his  children  from  the  public  school  and  must 
send  them  to  the  parish  school .  This  fairly 
represents  the  uttered  or  concealed  reply 
of  the  mass  of  thinking  men  in  the  modern 
world  to  any  presentation  of  the  old  au- 
thorities, when  prescribed  without  further 
g-round  than  an  uncriticised  imperative. 

We  have  left  behind  the  7nust  of  an 
infallible  Church,  of  an  infallible  Bible, 
and  of  an  unerring*  reason.     Each  one  of 


16  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

these  in  turn  has  been  abstracted  from 
an  organic  process  and  proposed  as  the 
authoritative  basis  of  belief.  The  inade- 
quacy of  the  proof  for  such  infallibility  has 
rendered  this  claim  of  each  one  of  no  effect. 
The  abstract  reason,  which  was  first  used 
to  discredit  the  other  two,  has  fallen  into 
the  pit  which  itself  digged,  and  de  pro- 
fundis  rise  its  agnostic  moans.  Hence 
the  task  laid  upon  us  in  these  days  is  that 
of  inquiring  whether  these  old  musts  do 
not  have  a  real  authority,  other  and  more 
ethical  than  the  one  rightf ull}^  denied  ;  to 
see  whether  they  do  not  have  a  natural 
and  essential  authority  that  rational  men 
must  accept  in  order  to  be  rational. 

The  Function  of  Criticism. 

A  criticism  which  is  merely  negative  is 
both  irrational  and  unhuman.  The  func- 
tion of  criticism  is  to  be  the  dynamic 
forcing  on  from  one  static  phase  of  belief 
and  institution  to  another,  to  destroy  only 
by  conserving  in  higher  fulfilled  form.     Its 


IN  RELIGION.  17 

aim  can  only  be  to  restore  as  reason  what 
it  first  seeks  to  destroy  as  the  nnreason  of 
mere  might ;  to  restore  as  essential  realized 
fi'eedom  what  it  momentarily  rejects  as 
external  necessity.  Such  w^ork  involves  a 
thorong-h  reformation  of  tlie  whole  edifice 
of  dogma  and  institution,  a  thoroug-h  re- 
appreciation  of  the  genuine  worth  of  these 
works  of  the  human  spirit  under  divine 
guidance. 

Such  a  task  implies  an  ideal  of  knowl- 
edge vastly  different  from  that  of  ordina- 
ry rationalism.  That  holds  an  abstract 
subjective  conception  of  truth,  imagined 
under  the  form  of  mathematical  equali- 
ty or  identity.  It  has  no  place  for  de- 
velopment or  organic  pi'ocess,  and  none 
for  comprehension  of  concrete  experience 
which  it  vainly  tries  to  force  into  its  me- 
chanical forms.  This  method,  on  the  con- 
trary, simply  undertakes  to  understand 
tuhaf  is,  or  concrete  experience,  under  the 
conception  of  organic  development  in  his- 
toric process.     It  can  attempt  no  demon- 


18  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

stration  of  the  org-aiiic  process  of  relig'ion 
by  an3^thing'  external  to  it.  It  seeks  only 
to  give  an  intellig"ent  description  of  the 
process.  The  process  itself  gives  the  con- 
ception of  its  rationality.  It  declines  to 
abstract  any  part  of  the  process  or  to 
seize  any  one  of  its  static  moments  and 
make  that  the  measure  or  the  proof  of  the 
Avhole,  as  oi-dinarj^  apologetics  attempt  to 
do.  The  real  history  of  religion,  then, 
like  the  real  history  of  any  organism  in 
nature,  is  its  true  rationality  and  vindica- 
tion. 

The  reason  appealed  to,  also,  is  that 
which  manifests  itself  in  the  corporate 
process,  and  not  in  the  individual  member. 
A  religious  individual  is  an  abstraction. 
The  truth  is  the  whole  concrete  historical 
institution  of  which  he  is  a  member.  Only 
as  he  experiences  or  mirrors  the  various 
stages  of  this  organic  life  can  he  under- 
stand or  express  the  rationality  of  religion. 
His  certitude  rests  upon  authority,  which 
he,  as  autonomic,  must  finall}^  impose  up- 


IN  RELIGION.  19 

on  liimself.  Ojective  rationality  can  onl^^ 
thus  becojne  subjective  and  afford  real 
grounds  of  certitude.  Such  a  method  of 
acquiring'  rational  certitude  may  not  satisfy 
those  whose  ideal  of  knowledge  is  that  of  or- 
dinary rationalism.  But  have  we  not  vainly 
tried  to  satisfy  such  an  ideal  long-  enough  ? 
Has  not  the  century  and  a  half  of  "  the 
age  of  i-eason  "  landed  us  in  agnosticism, 
from  ^vhich  it  cannot  extricate  us  ?  Are 
we  not  ready  to  abandon  the  attempt 
of  such  rationalism  and  try  the  higher 
method  ?  This  method  consists  of  an 
historical  and  -a  philosophical  study  of 
religion . 

The  historical  inquiry  should  first  enable 
us  to  see  the  value  of  Bible  and  Church  as 
records  and  aids  of  the  religious  life  of  the 
past.  The  philosophic  inquiry  should  then 
enable  us  to  see  their  necessity  and  worth 
to  the  religious  life  of^oui-  times.  Neither 
of  these  methods  is  so  irrational  as  to 
dare  to  sectarianize  o\u'  religious  life  fi-om 
that  of  the  past.     Both  see  this  life  as  a 


V 


20  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

continuous  process,  and  only  seek  to  under- 
stand and  interpret  what  has  been,  as  an 
aid  to  what  should  be.  Neither  of  them 
&e  individualistic.  Both  of  them  stud^^  the 
individual  as  an  org-anic  member  of  the 
social  whole,  recog'oizing  that  the  wisdom 
and  the  work  of  the  many,  especially  as  an 
organized  community,  is  always  g-reater 
than  that  of  an^^  of  its  members  ;  reformers 
never  being*  more  than  org-ans  of  the  nascent 
communal  spirit. 

Theories  of  Society  Supplanting 
Theories  of  the  Individual. 
Tlie  whole  swing-  of  the  pendulum  of 
thoug'ht  to-day  is  awa^^  from  the  individual 
and  towards  the  social  point  of  view.  Theo- 
ries of  societ}^  are  supplanting-  theories  of 
the  individual.  The  solidarity  of  man  is 
the  reg-nant  thought  in  both  the  scientific 
and  the  historical  study  of  man.  It  is  even 
running-  into  the  extreme  of  a  determinism 
that  annihilates  the  individual.  Both 
theolog-y  and  ecclesiasticism  have  passed 


IN  RELIGION.  21 

through  this  extreme,  which  we  may  call 
the  Chinese  phase  of  belief  and  life.  The 
Protestant  woi*ld  is  slow  to  yield  to  the 
Zeitgeist  heralding-  a  retreat  from  in- 
dividualism to  socialism,  dreading*  a  rep- 
etition of  its  t^a^anny.  But  the  swing- 
of  the  pendulum  has  also  begun  in  these 
spheres.  *' Martyrs  of  disg-ust  "  may  be 
the  loudest  and  foremost  fuglemen  in  the 
retreat.  But  this  does  not  prevent  the  her- 
alds of  concrete  reason  from  advancing- 
backward  to  reclaim  their  neglected  heri- 
tage. The  institution  and  the  creed  of  the 
whole  are  being  seen  to  have  a  rational  au- 
thority that  must  be  recognized.  Societj^ 
is  seen  to  be  the  obligatory  theatre  for  the 
realization  of  freedom.  Its  authority  is 
seen  to  be  that  of  order  and  harmony  of 
individual  minds  and  wills.  No  Church  no 
Christian,  no  oecumenical  creed  no  right 
belief. 

But  Church  and  Creed  are  already  old. 
We  cannot  manufacture  totally  new  ones. 
Nor  can  we  accept  the  old  forms  at  their 


22  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

old  worth,  as  fetters  of  thoug"lit  and  action. 
We  have  oiitg-rown  that  form  of  their 
authority,  as  the  child  outg-rows  the  pa- 
ternal authority.  So  we  think.  But  the 
analogy  is  not  perfect.  Besides,  the  au- 
thority of  the  father  as  that  of  a  full- 
g-rown  man,  which  develops  the  powers 
of  the  child,  is  never  fully  shaken  off.  Nor 
does  the  individual  member  of  a  community 
ever  outgrow  the  larger  wisdom  of  the 
whole.  At  best  the  authorit^^  can  only  be 
translated  from  the  form  of  coercive  into 
the  form  of  moral  authority.  And  this  is 
what  we  should  aim  at  in  our  re-appraise 
ment  of  orthodox\"  and  the  Church. 

Danger  of   Weak  Roinanticiziiig. 

The  dang-er  of  a  weak  romanticizing-,  of 
a  pathetically  pessimistic  distrust  of  rea- 
son causing-  an  uncritical  acceptance  of  all 
the  old  bonds,  should  not  deter  us  from 
seeking-  a  rationale  of  them  that  ^\\]\  com- 
pel an  ethical  submission  to  theii'  rig'htful 
authority.     But  it  should  put  us  on   our 


IN  RELIGION.  33 

g'uard  ag-ainst  humoring  a  weak  phase  of 
the  human  sphnt,  which  comes  when  its 
wings  droop  from  weariness,  so  that  a 
plunge  into  the  ocean  beneath  seems  relief. 
It  should  also  put  us  on  our  g-uard  lest  the 
oncoming  of  this  social  view  be  permitted 
to  take  an  abstract  form,  and  thus  crush 
out  the  might  and  rig'ht  of  personality. 
We  should  be  alert  to  carrj^  with  us  all 
the  hard-won  fruits  of  Protestantism. 
The  danger  is  that  we  may  find  our- 
selves slaves  again. 

The  two  phases  of  authority  for  which 
Apologetics  ordinarily  contend  are  the  in- 
tellectual and  the  practical.  The  first  is 
that  of  creed  or  orthodoxy,  the  other  is 
that  of  institution  or  Chui-ch.  Till  re- 
centl^^  the  burden  of  Apologetics  has  been 
the  maintenance  of  orthodoxy,  which  has 
largely  meant  Calvinism,  founded  upon  an 
unhistorical  interpretation  of  an  infallible 
Bible.  Such  Apologetics  have  had  their 
da3^  They  have  almost  destroyed  both 
orthodoxy  and  the  Bible.    The  other  phase 


24  RE  A  S  ON  AND  A  UTHO  RITY 

of  Apolog-etics  now  claims  to  be  heard. 
It  claims  to  include  the  task  of  the  former 
phase.  The  Church,  as  the  author  of  the 
creed  and  the  Bible,  proposes  to  vindicate 
them  as  parts  of  its  process — as  its  own 
offspring"  —  in  vindicating-  itself  as  the 
practical  embodiment  and  promoter  of 
Christianity.  We  need  scarcel^^  disclaim 
any  sympathy  with  this  phase  as  repre- 
sented by  Romanist  and  Hig-h- Anglican. 
The  common  method  of  both  is  arbitrary, 
abstract,  unhistorical,  dog-matic  and  un- 
convincing-. It  is  the  "  must  "  which  Pat- 
rick left  behind  in  the  old  country.  But 
Patrick  never  leaves  his  patriotism  behind. 
He  has  a  double  sort  of  patriotism  for 
both  his  old  and  his  new  country.  He  is 
unreflectingly  wiser  and  more  concrete 
than  the  abstract  rationalist  who  owns 
**no  tribe,  nor  state,  nor  home,"  nor  con- 
tent, except  what  he  makes  for  himself. 
Nor  can  we  leave  the  Church  behind.  It 
has  helped  make  us  what  we  are.  The 
rational  form  of  this  method,  then,  com- 


IN  RELIGION.  25 

mands  s^ympath}^  It  should  include  a 
historical  and  psychological  study  of  the 
institution,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  philo- 
sophical vindication  of  its  rational  author- 
ity over  individuals,  as  constitutive  of 
their  essential  well  being-.  This  affords  a 
relative  vindication  of  the  various  phases, 
and  an  absolute  vindication  of  the  whole 
process  and  its  results.  The  end  justifies 
the  means,  is  immanent  in  and  constitutive 
of  these.  But  this  process  and  result  are 
in  and  through  the  community.  Chris- 
tianity is  the  Church.  Its  ground  of  cer- 
titude and  authority  is  in  the  whole.  It  is 
in  the  light  of  this  general  conception  of 
an  organic  social  process  that  we  must 
seek  for  the  ground  of  certitude  in  both 
subjective  and  objective  religion. 

The  Right  of  Private  Judgment. 

Certitude  is  conviction  resting  on  dis- 
cernment as  a  constant  element  in  all  the 
activity  of  our  mental  and  spiritual  facul- 
ties.  The  certitude  resting  on  authority  or 


26  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

on  testimoii}^  really  rests  on  a  discernment 
of  their  reasonableness.  Thus  certitude  is 
personal.  It  is  the  yea  and  amen  of  pri- 
vate judg'nient.  It  comes  from  the  mani- 
festation of  the  truth  by  God  through 
media.  In  the  case  of  religious  certitude, 
the  inclusive  medium  is  the  Church.  But 
no  doctrine  of  the  Church  as  an  organism 
that  denies  the  light  and  duty  of  private 
judgment  can  remain  an  ethical  one. 
Protestantism  has  bought  this  at  too  great 
a  price  to  be  bartered  away.  It  is  ov^y  as 
against  an  abstract  individualism  that  ig- 
nores the  patent  fact  that  one  is  what  he  is 
by  virtue  of  the  social  tissue  in  which  he 
lives,  that  there  is  need  of  reasserting  the 
authority  of  this  constitutive  environment. 
But  this  must  be  an  ethical  organism,  in- 
clusive of,  and  living  only  in  and  through 
its  individual  members.  It  is  just  as  true 
that  the  Church  exists  in  and  through  its 
individual  members  as  it  is  that  they  exist 
in  and  through  the  Church.  It  is  a  king- 
dom of  persons  where  all  are  kings,  because 


IN  RELIGION.  37 

all  are  persons,  and  not  an  abstract  .exter- 
nal aiitliorit^^  It  is  an  org*anism  of  organ- 
isms, a  person  of  persons,  a  Holj^  Spirit 
that  only  lives  and  realizes  itself  on  earth 
through  personal  members.  This  much 
is  said  here  to  guard  against  any  sus- 
picion of  reverting  to  the  abstract  concep- 
tion of  the  authority  of  the  Church  as  a 
ground  of  certitude,  which  was  "  the  infi- 
nite falsehood"  of  mediaeval  ecclesiasti- 
cism. 

Ground  and  the  "  Urgrund  "    of 
Religion. 

I  have  used  the  singular,  grotind,  in- 
stead of  the  plural,  grounds,  because  what 
we  wish  is  a  vital  organic  universal,  in- 
stead of  a  number  of  abstract  particulars. 
^'  To  be  confined  within  the  range  of  mere 
grounds,  is  the  position  and  principle 
characterizing  the  sophists."  (Hegel's 
Logic,  p  196.)  This  species  of  accident- 
al, arbitrary,  special-pleading  reasoning; 
this  g-iving  a  pro  for  every  con  ;  this  age 


38  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

of  reason  (of  grounds)  in  Apologetics,  had 
full  sweep  in  the  eighteenth  century  and 
far  enough  into  the  nineteenth  to  be  re- 
sponsible for  much  of  the  prevalent  scepti- 
cism. 

To-day,  the  ordinary  grounds  or  proofs 
of  our  religion  are  justl}^  called  in  question, 
and  we  are  asking  for  a  fundamental  uni- 
versal ground  (an  Urgrund)  of  them  all — 
prophecy,  miracle,  the  incarnation,  the 
Bible,  the  Church,  and  reason — for  the 
authorit^^  of  all  these  authorities 

This  Urgrund  must  be  an  organic  first 
principle  w^hich  unfolds  into  a  philosophy 
of  religion  as  the  only  final  and  satisfac- 
tory Apologetic  for  Christianity ;  a  first 
principle  which  vindicates  religion  as  a 
g'enuine  and  necessar}^  factor  in  the  life  of 
man,  and  Christianity  as  the  fruition  of  all 
religion.  Resting  either  in  the  simple 
faith  of  childhood,  or  on  abstract  external 
evidences,  or  3  ielding'  blindlj^  to  external 
authority"  by  arbitrar^^  wilful  repression 
of  thought,  as  did  the  late  Cardinal  New- 


IN  RELIGION,  29 

man ;  none  of  these  methods  are  possible 
to-day.  Mere  dog-ma  and  mere  external 
evidences  and  authorit}^  are  no  antidote  to 
doubt,  no  g-rounds  of  certitude  in  our 
day. 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  words  in  de- 
scribing the  patent  phase  of  current  relig- 
ious thought.  It  is,  in  brief,  one  of  unrest 
and  doubt,  and  yet  also  one  of  faith  and 
reconstruction.  It  is  attempting  the  neces- 
sary feat  of  swallowing  nnd  digesting  its 
own  offspring  of  doubts.  It  is  on  its  way  to 
an  Urgrund  which  cannot  be  something 
outside  of  itself.  This  can  be  nothing  but 
the  generic  principle  which,  as  constitutive 
and  organic,  is  implicit  throughout  its 
Avhole  process.  At  best  there  can  be  but 
an  approximate  comprehension  of  this  im- 
manent life-principle.  But  it  is  the  task 
which  the  thoughtful  human  spirit  feels  as 
a  categ-orical  imperative.  There  is  an  un- 
derlying faith  or  certitude  even  in  those 
phases  where  negative  results  are  most 
conspicuous.     There  is  an  everlasting"  yea 


30  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

beneath  doubt  which  alone  renders  doubt 
possible. 

Reliyioii  Geniiinelij  Human. 

Religion  is  ackiiowledg-ed  to  be  one  of 
the  great  human  universals,  co-extensive 
with  man's  history,  and  as  varied  in  form 
as  his  culture.  It  is  trul^-  and  essentially 
human.  It  is  a  necessary  part  of  human- 
ity's life.  No  religion,  no  man  ;  perfect 
religion,  perfect  man.  Organizations  may 
decay  and  theologies  crumble,  but  the  re- 
ligious spirit  lives  on  through  and  above 
these  changes,  making  for  itself  ever  more 
congenial  and  adequate  manifestations  and 
org-ans  of  its  perennial  life — rising  on  step- 
ping stones  of  its  petrified  forms  to  higher 
ones.  With  art  and  philosophy  it  forms 
the  triad  of  man's  relations  with  the  Ab- 
solute Spirit.  In  these  three  inter-relat- 
ed and  mutually  sustaining  spheres  is  ex- 
hibited the  perfection  of  his  spiritual  char- 
acter and  functions.  The  creative  object, 
the  ultimate  and  constitutive  ground  of 
them  all,  is  God. 


IN  RELIGION.  31 

What  is  Religion  9 

What  is  religion  ?  A  descriptive  defini- 
tion of  the  totality  of  phenomena  which 
constitutes  relig"ion  would  he  too  extensive. 
So  too  would  he  a  mere  enumeration  of  the 
definitions  of  it  that  have  been  proposed. 
But  most  of  such  definitions  have  a  com- 
mon heart,  and  proceed  from  a  varied 
reflection  of  a  common  truth.  Religion  is 
at  least  a  conscious  reverential  relation  of 
man  to  God.  It  ma^^  be  '^  morality  tinged 
Avith  emotion,"  but  that  emotion  must 
come  from  impact  of  the  soul  with  God. 
It  is  a  spiritual  activit}^  of  self-relation  to 
the  great  "  Power  not  ourselves,"  through 
feeling,  thought  and  will.  It  is  a  striv- 
ing to  fall  upward  from  the  mere  physical 
side  of  our  life.  But  this  implies — and  im- 
plies as  its  essential  presupposition — the 
falling  down,  the  self-relation  of  this  Power 
to  man.  We  must  therefore  define  rehg- 
ion  as  the  reciprocal  relation  or  com-i 
munion  of  God  and  tnan,  ' 


32  REASON  AND  A  UTHORITY 

These  two  sides  of  this  org-anic  process 
may  be  termed  (1)  Rev^elation,  (2)  Faith. 
That  is,  the  self  relation  of  God  to  man 
constitutes  the  conception  of  re^'elation  ; 
the  self-relation  of  man  to  God  constitutes 
that  of  faith.  The  two  elements  are  cor- 
relative, thoug-h  that  of  God's  activity  is 
both  chronologically^  and  logicallj^  primal, 
and  evocative  of  the  other.  Thus  religion 
rests  upon  a  miivei-sal.  It  is  not  merely  sub- 
jective. We  cannot  abstract  faith  from 
revelation.  For  it  is  only  both  tog-ether 
that  give  us  the  concrete  content  of  religion. 

Revelation. 

(1).  Revelation  is  the  moment  of  divine 
self- showing-  in  the  organic  process  which 
constitutes  religion.  As  the  self-relation 
of  God  to  man,  it  is  a  primal  and  perennial 
act,  which,  in  religion,  is  recognized  as  a 
phase  of  one's  own  personal  experience. 
As  im^nediate,  it  forms  the  background 
of  all  human  life — sentient,  mental  and 
moral.     It  forms  the  5i/jp7'a-nature  of  hu- 


IN  RELIGION.  38 

manity,  and  is  creative  of  it.  Back  of, 
beneath,  immanent  in  {/nerd)  all  that  is 
human,  there  is  that  which  constitutes 
and  sustains  it.  This  metaphysics  of  man, 
mental  and  moral,  is  the  immanent,  im- 
mediate relation  of  God  to  humanity. 
But  the  term  is  generally  confined  to  what 
we  may  call  mediated  revelation.  God's 
self-relation  to  us  is  continually  mediated 
and  brought  to  our  consciousness  through 
our  physical,  mental,  moral  and  social  re- 
lations. He  is  immanent  in  these  rela- 
tions, and  thus  reveals  himself  to  our 
conscious  experience.  It  is  through  our 
knowledge  of  nature,  through  our  knowl- 
edge and  love  of  our  brethren — that  is, 
through  our  knowledge  of  the  physical 
and  moral  world-order — that  we  become 
conscious  of  God's  relation  to  us.  Signs 
and  tokens  and  mighty  works,  Bible  and 
Church,  family  and  social  life,  have  all 
been  used  as  media  of  this  revelation. 
Revelation,  however  mediated,  cgnstitutes 
the  objective  side  of  religion. 


34  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Faith. 

(2).  Faitli  is  the  subjective  side.  It  is 
jnan's  conscious  apprelieiision  of  God  tlius 
related  to  him  throiig-h  revelation.  It  em- 
braces all  the  constituent  elements  of  the 
human  side  of  relii^ion — tlie  aj^prehension 
of  the  Godwaid  side  of  all  that  we  do  or 
say  or  think.  Fait  li  is  faith.  This  tauto- 
]o§"ical  detinition  is  compulsory,  from  the 
nature  of  the  activity.  It  is  a  ]n'imal, 
basal  activity  of  the  human  spirit.  It  is 
the  simplest,  and  yet  may  be  the  most 
complex,  activity  of  conscious  man.  It 
has  no  special  oi-i^-an  and  is  no  special 
faculty,  hut  is  th^(^  dynamic  in  all  our 
faculties.  It  contains  elements  of  feelino-, 
thinkiiio-  and  williuii;',  because  it  is  the 
actus  piirus  prevenient  and  co-operating* 
with  all  these  faculties.  It  is  the  spirit's 
apprehension  of  realities  throug'h  these 
faculties.  It  is  its  practical  self-conscious- 
ness of  the  Absolute.  It  is  the  self  prac- 
tically conscious  of  itself,  in  its   relation 


IN  RELIGION.  35 

with  God.  Thus  it  is  only  another  name 
for  the  hig'hest  phase  of  self-consciousness. 
Such  self-consciousness  is  never  merely 
subjective.  Its  contents  are  the  results 
of  the  mediation  of  all  its  physical,  social 
and  religious  environment  and  training-, 
and  ultimately  of  God,  through  these 
media.  Religious  faith — and  specifically 
Christian  faith — is  God's  children's  crj^  of 
Abba,  Father.  It  is  their  apprehension 
of  their  divine  sonship,  the  responsive 
thrill  of  emotion  awakened  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  God's  paternal  relation  to 
them.  Abraham's  faith  was  his  conscious- 
ness of  friendship  with  God.  Our  faith 
is  our  consciousness  of  divine  sonship 
through  his  eternal  Son,  Jesus  Christ. 
Such  Christian  faith  is  a  very  profound 
and  simple,  and  yet  a  most  complex  stage 
of  self-consciousness.  It  involves  the  me- 
diation of  a  Christian  education,  Avhich 
implies  that  of  eighteen  centuries  of  the 
Church's  life.  Thus,  wiiile  our  faith  is 
subjective  and  personal,  it  is  only  so  be- 


36  EEAS  ON  AND  A  UTHORIT  V 

cause  we  have  been  educated  into  the  con- 
scious possession  of  tlie  Christian  heritag'e 
of  centuries  Our  personal  subjective  faitli 
itself,  as  well  as  o!\jective  faith,  is  g-round- 
ed  upon  and  mediated  for  us  tliroug'h  in- 
stitutional CMu'istianity. 

Thus  the  objective  g-round  of  religion  is 
God,  and  the  subjective  ground  faith — or 
the  simple  appreliension,  through  more  or 
less  media,  of  this  i-elation — ^thus  convert- 
ing* the  whole  into  the  process  of  recipro- 
cal relations  between  God  and  man,  winch 
constitute  religion. 

Suh-persoiiiil    Conceptions  of  the  First 
Principle. 

It  will  not  do  to  substitute  for  God  ''  the 
power  not  ourselves,''  Law,  Force,  Sub- 
stance, or  any  »s'7//>-personal  category .  And 
the  non-personal  is  always  »s/r6-personal. 
It  may  be  acknowledged  that  some  scien- 
tific conceptions  of  law,  order,  nature,  cos- 
mos, are  higher  in  one  sense  than  some 
anthropomorphic  conceptions  of  God,  but 


IN  RELIGION.  37 

they  are  never  6'?6pra-persoiial,  and  can 
never  afford  the  conscious  relation  we  call 
religion.  Our  analysis  of  the  content  of 
consciousness  can  only  arbitrarily  stop 
short  of  that  of  self  consciousness,  or  self- 
determined  totality. 

If  the  charge  is  made  that  our  concep- 
tion of  the  first  principle  as  personal  is 
merely  subjective — the  imag-inative  reflec- 
tion of  our  own  mind  upon  phenomena— it 
may  at  least  be  met  b^^  thecounter-charg-e 
of  the  same  subjectivism  in  scientific  con- 
ceptions. Matter,  law,  force,  are  equality 
subjective  measurements  of  the  objective 
by  the  subjective.  But  this  argumentum 
ad  hominem  is  only  a  side  thrust  of 
thought  on  its  Avay  through  and  above  all 
such  imperfect  conceptions  of  the  first 
principle.  All  such  conceptions  ai'e  im- 
plicitly religious.  They  imply  as  their 
g»'ound  the  full  conception  of  God.  Hence 
the  scientist  is  sane  only  as  he  becomes 
devout.  But  this  criticism  of  the  cate- 
gories of  ordinary  science,  making  explicit 


38  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

its  real  ground,  is  the  work  of  philosophy 
proper.  It  is  the  needed  corrective  of 
scientific  ag-nosticism. 

Such  a  criticism  of  the  categories  of 
thought  reaches  a  system  of  categories 
with  God  as  the  implicit  and  the  ultimate 
one.  We  shall  refer  to  tiiis  later  on,  but  only 
superficial] 3\  Religion  grasps  this  without 
reflection.  Philosophy  has  nothing  further 
to  do  than  to  point  out  the  necessity  and 
rationality  of  the  human  spirit  reaching 
and  resting  in  communion  with  this  per- 
sonal First  Principle  or  Urgrimd.  The  In- 
carnation, as  the  perfect  realization  of  this 
bond  between  God  and  man,  and  the  exten- 
sion of  the  Incarnation  in  history,  are  the 
essential  media  of  both  present  religious 
and  philosophical  apprehension  of  this 
g"eneric  Urgrund.  In  neither  case  is  it 
reached  directly  or  intuitively. 

The  Ultimate  Conception  of  the  First 
Principle. 

Relig-ion,  then,  as  a  part  of  man's  con- 


IN  RELIGION.  39 

sciousiiess,  has  its  ultimate  g-round  in 
the  eternal  and  loving-  i-eason  of  the  First 
Principle  of  all  things.  Faith  itself,  or  the 
subjective  side,  is  necessai'ily  reduced  to 
the  action  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  man. 
The  consciousness  of  this  actual  vital  rela- 
tion, or  reciprocal  bond  between  God  and 
man,  is  a  primal  and  perennial  fact,  and 
the  ultimate  ground  of  religious  certitude. 
Consciousness  in  man  is  implicitly  a  know- 
ing of  self  with  God  {con-scivs),  3,nd  hence 
of  knowing  God  in  knowing  self.  This  is 
the  real  significance  of  tlie  ontoiogical 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God. 

This  bond  is  as  real  a  relation  as  the 
causal  relation.  Indeed,  it  is  often  identi- 
fied with  this  relation.  Our  heredity  is 
from  God,  even  though  it  be  through  lower 
forms  of  life,  and  oui*  goal  is  also  God,  even 
thougii  it  be  through  impei-fect  manhood. 
The  ground  of  religion  we  find,  then,  to  be 
nothing  extrinsic.  It  does  not  need  a 
special  handle  in  the  way  of  external  rea- 
sons.    It  is  not  founded   upon   nor  sus- 


40  REASON  AND  A  UTHORITY 

tained  by  the  various  alleg-ed  proofs. 
These  may  vary  and  pass  away,  but  the 
activity  continues  as  a  necessary  function 
of  normal  humanity.  Relig-ion  will  be 
found  at  the  grave  as  well  as  at  the  cradle 
of  man,  because  God  is  the  immanent  and 
transcendent  essence  of  man.* 

God  is  the  ultimate  metaphysics  of  man, 
physical,  mental  and  spiritual ;  the  real 
substance ;  the  continuously  creative  and 
sustaining'  power  in  His  offspring.  The 
Benedicite  is  the  spontaneous  expression 
of  the  whole  groaning  and  rejoicing  crea- 
tion. If  men  should  be  so  insensate  as  not 
to  worship,  ''  the  stones  would  immediate- 
ly cry  out "  an  anthem  of  praise.  The 
Psalmist's  exclamation,  "  Thou  hast  beset 
me  behind  and  before  ;  .  .  Thou  hast  cov- 
ered me  in  my  mother's  womb,"  voices 
the  consciousness  of  this  ultimate  meta- 
physics of  all  things  ph^-sical.     This  Ur- 

*  "  As  thepersonality  of  man  has  its  foundation 
in  the  personality  of  God,  so  the  reahzation 
of  personality  bring-s  man  always  nearer  to  God." 
— Mulford's  '*  Republic  of  Ood,"  p.  28. 


IN  RELIGION.  41 

grund  is  creatively  present  before  con- 
sciousness comes  to  raise  the  new-born  man 
above  the  brutes.  It  begets  religion  as 
soon  as  consciousness  of  this  power,  in 
however  low  a  form,  appears,  binding- 
man  back  to  (re-ligare)  or  causing  him  to 
review  {re-leg ere)  the  fact  of  this  primal 
relation.  This  consciousness  varies  in  de- 
gree, strength,  form  and  clearness  of  con- 
tent. But  it  is  the  ground  of  the  various 
grounds  that  Ave  can  offer  as  causal  of  this, 
which  is  itself  the  cause  of  them .  Prophecy 
and  miracle,  the  Bible,  Church  and  rea- 
son also,  are  all  its  offspring,  and  authen- 
ticated by  it,  rather  than  the  reverse. 

Religion  Has  a  History. 

But  it  is  impossible  that  this  fundamen- 
tal fact  of  consciousness  could  be  perfect  at 
once.  Religion,  individual  and  racial,  has 
a  history.  It  begins  as  an  immediate,  in- 
definite apprehension  of  the  fact  in  the  sub- 
jective consciousness,  but  it  expands  and 
wins  definite  content  with  the  growth  of 


42  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

human  consciousness  in  all  spheres  of  ex- 
perience. Thus  subjective  rehgion  ex- 
pands with  new  revelation  and  apprehen- 
sion of  it  into  objective  forms  of  creed,  cult 
and  institution,  which  in  turn  educe  and 
strengthen  it.  The  same  spontaneous 
consciousness  of  "  the  Power  not  our- 
selves "  that  led  the  childhood  of  the  race 
to  personify  earth  and  skj^,  also  led  Plato 
and  Clement  and  Hegel,  through  the  medi- 
ation of  Greek  and  Christian  culture,  to 
proclaim  the  essential  and  perennial  kin- 
ship of  man  with  God,  in  all  the  concrete 
experience  of  his  life  and  institutions. 

There  is  more  than  an  analogy,  there  is 
a  real  kinship  between  the  psychological 
and  objective  development  in  the  individu- 
al and  the  race.  So  Ave  ma}'  trace  a  com- 
mon outline  for  both.  Indeed  its  develop- 
ment in  the  individual  is  only  rendered 
possible  through  connection  with  a  com- 
munal life.  It  is  only  by  a  false  abstrac- 
tion that  the  religion  of  the  individual  can 
be  considered  separately.      Here  as  else- 


IN  RELIGION,  43 

where  the  universal  is  prioi'  to,  and  consti- 
tutive of,  the  individual.  But  this  is  not 
an  abstract  universal.  It  is  the  concrete 
organism  of  which  he  is  a  vital  member. 

'^  I  believe  "  implies  a  '^  They  believed  " 
and  a  *'  We  believe.^'' 

One  can  say  I  believe  {credo)  only  by 
first  having-  joined  with  others  in  saying 
^^  we  believe  "  {7ti6t8vohev).  The  /  alwa^-s 
implies  the  we.  It  equals  to-day  the  social- 
ized and  Christianized  man  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  I  believe,  because  the}^ — 
eighteen  centuries  of  Christian  kinsmen — 
have  believed  ;  and  because  we,  the  Univer- 
sal Church,  believe.  Still,  the  subjective 
factor  is  central,  and  our  socialized  faith 
is  personal  coinuiunion  with  God.  The 
individual  has  absorbed,  and  has  been  re- 
alized, not  annihilated  by,  the  universal. 
Religion  remains  to  the  end  a  personal  re- 
lation to  a  Person,  however  much  it  has 
been  nourished  and  quickened  b^^  tli '  com- 
munity.   '^  I  believe  "  now  means  the  sub- 


44  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 


jective,  personal  self-affirmation,  ^^  the 
everlasting-  ye^  "  of  our  Christianized  con- 
sciousness. 


What  Do  I  Believe  ? 

But  what  do  I  beUeve  ?  What  is  the 
definite  content  of  the  religious  relation  of 
the  individual  with  God  ? 

I  believe  the  con  sense  of  the  Christian 
consciousness  in  regard  to  God,  man  and 
the  world.  I  believe  ''The  Catholic 
Faith."  We  are  far  beyond  the  faith  of 
childhood,  of  primitive  man.  The  historic 
process  of  revelation  and  faith  has  rendered 
primitive  immediate  faith  impossible  and 
irrational.  Both  the  act  and  the  content 
have  been  endlessly  mediated  for  us.  Our 
consciousness  of  God  has  been  enriched  by 
that  of  a  host  of  heroes  of  the  faith,  and 
by  the  cult  and  dog"ma  of  centuries  of 
Christendom.  Questions  have  been  asked 
and  answerd  for  us  before  we  wei^e  born. 
We  have  been  born  into  the  heritag-e  of 
these  answered  questions  in  the  shape  of 


IN  RELIGION.  45 

the  oecumenical  creeds,  though  enough 
open  questions  still  remain  to  make  us 
heroes  of  faith,  and  our  generation  an  age 
of  faith.  But  I  believe.  This  heritage  of 
the  Christian  faith  is  mine,  only  by  the 
subjective  personal  activity  of  appropria- 
tion and  realization.  The  Creeds  are  the 
records  of  a  series  of  deep  insights  into  the 
content  of  the  Christian  consciousness. 
The  mastery  of  these  is  an  ascent  of  the 
hidividual  into  the  -universal — something 
that  cannot  be  ours  by  mere  rote-learning, 
but  onls'  as  we  thiuk  over,  verify,  re-create 
or  experience  anew  within  ourselves.  Sub- 
jective faith  remains  the  most  important 
element  of  our  spiritual  life.  We  cannot 
be  merely  passive  recipients  of  the  most 
opuleut  heritag'e.  And  yet  the  universal, 
the  objective,  rightly  claims  its  place.  We 
see  this,  also,  when  we  ask,  further : 

Why  Do  I  Believe  the  Catholic  Faith  ? 

Why  do  I  believe  the  Catholic  Faith  ? 
What  renders  it  possible  for  me  to  make 


46  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

this  1113^  own  personal  faith?  Wh}^  does 
my  faith,  m^^  consciousness  of  relation  with 
God,  have  this  definite  form  and  content  ? 
This  form  of  faith,  though  personal,  is  not 
an  immediate  consciousness — a  primitive 
unmediated  revelation  of  God.  It  is  not 
a  matter  of  mere  individual  feeling-  or  in- 
tuition. The  ivhy  can  onl^^  be  answered 
by  reading-  the  whole  history  of  liis  devel- 
opment, throug-h  the  interaction  of  sub- 
jectivism and  objectivism,  of  the  self  and 
its  environment.  A  fair  analysis  of  this 
process  likewise  leads  back  to  God  as  its 
ultimate  ground.  The  psychological  and 
historical  lead  back  to  this  metaphysical 
Urgriind.  This  stag-e  of  what  we  call 
Christian  nurture  is  an  indispensable  phase 
in  the  development  of  both  strength  and 
definiteness  of  faith.  It  is  here  that  the 
rationality^  of  authoritative  catechetical 
Church  teaching' and  Christian  influence  of 
family  and  community  are  to  be  justi- 
fied. 

It  is  chiefly  in  this  ivhat  and  ivhy  of  relig- 


IN  RELIGION,  47 

ion  that  we  meet  with  grouiicls  that  seem 
to  be  extrinsic  and  accidental.  The  task, 
then,  is  to  translate  these  grounds  into 
rationality  ;  to  discover  their  place,  that 
renders  them  necessary  and  rational  ele- 
ments of  the  org-anic  process  of  the  relation 
of  God  and  man.  This  task  includes  the 
psychological  study  of  the  development  of 
man  in  the  social  organism,  and  the  his- 
torical study  of  the  development  of  the 
social  organism  itself,  on  the  way  hack 
to  the  ultimate  or  metaph3^sical  groimd. 

The  faith,  though  once  delivered,  could 
never,  from  the  condition  of  the  case,  even 
in  Christianity,  be  once  foi*  all  delivered  to 
the  individual  or  the  community.  This 
has  had,  is  having,  and  will  have  a  psy- 
chological history  in  both.  Faith  as  an 
activity  is  forever  the  same,  but  its  content, 
and  the  interpretation  of  this  content,  va- 
r}^  and  develop  with  new  conditions  and 
culture.  The  life-giving  Spirit  inspires 
to  some  new  form  of  practical  religion,  to 
meet  new  issues.     The  type  of  Christianity 


48  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

chang-es.     Then  the  intellectual  seers  note 
this  life,  and  modify  the  old  theology  so  as 

to  include  it. 
« 

The  question  then  is, whether  the  environ- 
ment leading-  to  chang-e  of  both  vital  and 
credal  form  of  Christianity  can  be  justified  ; 
whether,  in  theolog-ical  language,  we  can 
see  the  hand  of  Providence;  or,  in  the 
language  of  philosophy,  whether  we  can 
discern  the  immanent  logic  or  reason  thus 
objectif3ang  itself  in  rational  forms  ?  Or, 
if  we  restrict  credal  form  to  the  oecumeni- 
cal symbols,  and  the  normal  ecclesiastical 
form  to  that  of  the  primitive  Church,  the 
question  is  whether  we  can  discern  the 
rationality  ia  the  culture  of  Greece  and 
Rome  as  well  as  in  that  of  Judea,  Avhich 
makes  "  them  legitimate  ingredients  in  a 
cathohc,  complete  Christianity."  Can  we, 
in  other  words,  reach  a  philosophy  of  re- 
ligion that  justifies  the  multiform  devel- 
opment of  the  two  inseparable  elements  of 
religion — revelation  and  faith  ;  God's  seek- 
ing and  man's  finding ;  God's  adhesion  to 
man  and  man's  adhesion  to  God  ?    Such 


IN  RELIGION.  49 

a  philosophy  of  religlcii  must  be  based 
upoji  a  philosophy  of  history  which  must 
be  simply  a  rational  comprehension  of  em- 
pirical history.  We  thus  indicate  a  work 
far  be3'ond  the  limits  of  this  present  essay. 
We  can  do  no  more  than  note  briefly  the 
psychological  forms  through  which  religion 
passes  in  racial  and  individual  experience, 
catching  glimpses  of  the  immanent  ration- 
ality in  the  whole  process. 


PART  II. 

THE   PSYCHOLOGICAL   FORMS  OF  RELIGION. 

Three  Chief  Forms  :  Feeling,  Knowing 
and    Willing. 

We  designate  these  three  forms  as  (1) 
that  of  Feeling,  (2)  tliat  of  Kiioiving  in 
its  three  phases  of  (a)  conception,  (b) 
reflection  and  (c)  comprehension,  and  (3) 
that  of  Willing. 

These  are  inseparable  parts  of  conscious- 
ness, that  we  can  only  artificially  sepa« 


50  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

rate  for  purpose  of  study.  The  univer- 
sal element  of  thinking-  is  more  or  less 
present  in  the  particular  element  of  feel- 
ing*, and  willing  fuses  them  both  into  the 
concrete  individuality  of  person  or  epoch. 
But  in  different  ages  and  persons,  and  in 
the  same  person  at  different  times,  one  or 
the  other  of  these  phases  is  more  empha- 
sized than  the  others.  Hence  religion  va- 
ries in  its  psychological  form. 

1.     Religion  as  Feeling. 

Religion  exists  primarily  in  tlie  form  of 
feeling.  Its  genesis  belongs  to  the  primi- 
tive depths  in  which  the  soul  is  just  dis- 
tinguishing itself  from  the  great  not-self 
about  it.  It  is  the  first  coming  into  con- 
sciousness of  the  pre-conscious  fact  that 
every  one  is  born  of  God.  And  yet  this 
feeUng  is  generally  mediated  by  some 
religious  instruction.  The  power  behind 
and  before  is  first  felt,  rather  than  known. 
This  gives  the  sense  of  dependence,  which 
always  remains   an  integral  part  of  re- 


IN  RELIGION.  51 

ligion.  It  may  run  throug-h  the  gamut 
of  reverence,  fear,  dismay  and  terror,  or 
devil-worship.  Or  this  power  may  be  felt 
as  a  congenial  and  beneficent  one,  and  the 
feeling  run  through  the  gamut  of  rever- 
ence, confidence,  love,  peace  and  ecstas}^ 
or  mysticism.  Fear  and  confidence  are 
the  two  marked  elements  in  this  phase  of 
religion.  There  is  no  lack  of  certitude  in 
it.  The  unreasoned  certitude  of  feeling 
hallows  any  object,  from  a  log  of  wood  to 
the  sky,  from  a  Jupiter  to  a  Jehovah.  The 
fetich- worshipper  has  as  much  certitude  as 
the  Mariolater.  All  I'eligions  alike  afford 
this  certitude  to  their  worshippers. 

Historical  illustrations  of  religions  and 
of  individuals  in  this  phase  will  occur  to 
every  one  So  also  will  the  names  of 
Jacobi  and  Schleiermacher,  who,  in  their 
reaction  tVoni  vulgar  rationalism,  tried  to 
make  religion  entirely  a  matter  of  feeling 
or  of  the  heart.  The  certitude  of  this 
stage,  I  have  said,  is  no  measure  of  the 
worth  of  the  contents  of  feeling.     De  af- 


53  REASON  AND  A  U2  HORITY 

fectibus  non  disputandum.  Schleierma- 
cher  went  so  far,  we  know,  as  to  say 
that  every  religion  or  religious  feeling'  was 
g'ood  and  true ;  thus  proposing*  a  philoso- 
phy ^'  as  much  contrary  to  revealed  re- 
ligion as  to  rational  knowledge,"  and 
making  anything  like  a  communion  of 
worshippers  impossible.  Each  one  has 
his  oivn  feeling,  and  this  ma^^  be  so  em- 
phasized as  to  lead  to  both  sectarianism 
and  atheism. 

But,  strictly  speaking,  this  elementary 
phase  of  religion  is  quite  indefinite  as  to 
what  it  feels.  Until  other  elements  enter 
in,  there  is  no  personal  object  given  to 
worship.  It  represents  the]  first  con- 
scious mysterious  impulse  toward  the  infi- 
nite and  eternal.  It  represents  those  ele- 
ments of  reverence  and  confidence  which 
made  our  Saviour  promise  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  children.  But  it  is  a  phase 
into  which  other  elements  do  speedily  en- 
ter. The  activity  of  the  human  spirit  in 
relation  with    the   Infinite  Spirit  impels 


IN  RELIGION.  53 

it  on  to  definite  conceptions  of  God  and 
content  of  feeling".  Milk  for  babes,  strong- 
er nourishment  for  the  growing*  child. 

2.  Religion  as  Knoiving. 

The  phase  of  knowing  in  religion.* 
We  distinguish    here   three   phases   of 

knowing:  (a)  Conception,  (b)  Reflection, 

and  (c)  Comprehension. 

(a.)   That  of  Conception. 

Mere  feeling  is  rather  an  hypothetical 
stage  of  activit}^  Objects  that  produce 
feeling  are  soon  named,  or  learned,  or 
imagined.  The  child  is  soon  initiated  into 
definite  religious  conceptions  which  nour- 
ish his  religious  activity.  This  introduc- 
tion into  objective  forms  of  belief  and 
worship  is  congenial  with  his  developing 
intelligence.  It  helps  him  to  name  and 
to  imagine  the  object  of  his  religious  feel- 

*  I  may  refer  to  '*  Studies  in  Heg-eFs  Philosophy 
of  Religion,"  Chap.  IV.,  for  a  fuller  and  some- 
what varied  statement  and  criticism  of  this  sec- 
ond phase. 


54  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

ing".  The  activity  in  this  sphere  is  that  of 
imag-ination .  It  is  what  we  may  call  men- 
tal art— picture-thinking'  taking-  the  place 
of  picture- making".  It  is  thought  raising* 
us  out  of  sense.  Here  the  object  and  the 
content  of  the  religious  feeling  appear 
in  forms  corresponding'  to  the  degree  of 
culture  possessed.  The  new  wine  is  first 
put  into  old  bottles  and  then  new  bottles 
are  formed  out  of  the  frag-ments  of  the 
bursted  old  ones.  This  mental  art  of 
picture  conceptions  advances,  bodying' 
forth  in  less  sensuous  forms  and  in  more 
abstract  lang'uag'e  the  content  of  the  re- 
lig-ious  feeling'  the^^  help  to  quicken.  The 
savag'e  indulges  in  rude  sensuous  art,  or 
combines  it  with  rude  mental  art,  personi- 
fying  earth,  air  and  sky.  The  Christian 
child  is  met  in  this  phase  of  activity  with 
Christian  names  and  symbols,  which  help 
him  to  hig-her  conceptions  of  what  he  feels 
blindl}^  stirring-  in  his  soul.  They  do  not 
create,  but  only  help  develop  his  religious 
life  in   more  rational   form.      The    more 


IN  RELIGION.  55 

abstract  form  of  conception,  i.e.,  dogma, 
is  of  little  use  here,  unless  it  be  accom- 
panied with  parable,  leg'end  and  nan^a- 
tive.  It  is  the  time  that  religion  is  nour- 
ished on  narrative-metaphor.  The  Bible 
contains  a  good  proportion  of  such  food 
for  the  3^oung,  and  Christian  history,  es- 
pecially in  heroic  and  martyr  days,  fur- 
nishes more.  But  these  should  be  supple- 
mented by  current  religious  Uterature, 
comparable  with  that  furnished  oar  young 
people  by  St.  Nicholas  and  The  Youth's 
Companion,  instead  of  the  autumnal  leaf- 
lets and  childish  Sunday-school  books. 

By  means  of  literature  the  Divine  Educa- 
tor co-works  in  developing  and  strength- 
ening the  bond  between  himself  and  the 
growing  child.  Such  narrative -metaphors 
are  winged,  and  bear  the  young  soul  aloft 
to  the  very  heart  of  God.  It  is  the  ver^^ 
sustenance  for  which  ^^oung"  souls  are 
hungry,  and  mere  catechetical  instruction 
in  abstract  theology  is  the  veriest  chaff  to 
chafe  and  wither  their  aspirations,  unless 


56  BE  AS  ON  AND  AUTHORITY 

it  be  judiciously  couoealed  in.  fragrant 
flowers  or  ripe  fruit.  Give  them  the  his- 
cious  g'rape,  and  not  nierel^^  the  seed. 

Along-  with  this  g'oes  the  rehgious  nur- 
ture, through  pul)lic  worship,  Church  fes- 
tivals and  ceremonies.  The  Christian 
year,  followed  out  as  di^amaticallj'  as  possi- 
ble, is  the  best  teaclier  of  Christian  truth. 
Besides,  all  tliis  brings  out  the  social  side 
of  religion,  and  helps  to  unite  them  witli 
God  through  uniting  with  their  fellows. 

The  Catechetical  and  Dogmatic  Period. 

The  time  for  abstract  conceptions  will 
come  soon  enough.  Tiie  analyzing"  and 
comparing-  and  geneializing  activity  will 
beg-in  its  work  in  due  time.  Here  meta- 
phors harden  into  tact  or  are  generalized 
into  dogma.  The  winged  metaphor  will 
be  clipped.  The  seed  of  the  )-ipe  fruit  Avill 
be  soug-ht.  The  soul  will  crave  deflnite 
and  systematic  truth.  Subjective  feeling- 
and  its  imag-inative  vesture  must  find 
a  basis    in   ^'  Church    Doctrine    and    Bi- 


IN  RELIGION,  57 

ble  Truth.''  Much  of  the  non-symbolic 
teaching'  given,  it  is  true,  represents  the 
Avork  of  this  same  phase  of  the  activity  of 
thought  in  Church  teachers.  Systems  of 
theology-  are  often  not  much  in  advance  of 
this  period  of  abstract  conception.* 

How  best  to  conceive  God,  and  how  best 
represent  the  essential  rehgions  relation 
in  sj^stematic  form,  is  the  question  at  this 
stage,  as  the  earUer  picture-form  becomes 
more  abstract.  This  is  the  time  for  positive 
catechetical  instruction,  mingled  with  suf- 
ficient personal  and  rational  persuasion  to 
win  assent.  The  pi'oper  ground  of  certi- 
tude here  is  a  mingling  of  reason  and  au- 
thority. Tlie  authoi-itarive  teaching  of 
the  Churcli,  properly  presented^  is  God's 
method  of  fui'thor  development  of  the  bond 
between  himself  and  his  children.  What 
great  Christian  teachers  and  what  the 
Church  in  oecumenical  councils  have 
framed,  come  as  the  most  vocal  angels  of 
the  truth. 

Such   teaching    is   the   creation   of  the 


58  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

lio]y  Spirit  co-working"  with  the  com- 
munal spirit.  It  represents  the  best  ex- 
pression of  a  large  Christian  consciousness 
through  many  centuries.  It  can  and 
should  be  given  with  authorit3\  Ground- 
ed upon  the  vital  idea  of  religion,  it  has  a 
rational  authorit\^to  which  every  membei*, 
at  this  stage,  will  gladly  and  uncondition- 
ally submit.  Such  authoritative  teaching- 
is  the  craving  of  the  soul,  and  so  essential 
to  its  religious  life.  Here  such  authority 
nourishes  and  cxuickens  the  religious  life 
of  the  member,  and  submerges  his  in- 
dividual conceits  by  giving  him  the  one 
Lord,  one  faith  and  one  baptism  of  the 
Universal  Church.  It  is  the  time  to  go  to 
school ;  the  time  when  the  mind  era  ves 
teachers  and  longs  for  the  wisdom  that  is 
beyond  it.  It  craves  to  know  ivhat  it 
ought  to  believe.  It  believes  spontaneous- 
ly^ on  authority.  Itjs  also  the  time  for 
Bible  teaching,  for  Christian  education 
through  sacred  literature. 
The  Bible  is  the  Church's  record  of  the 


IN  RELIGION.  59 

historical  revelation  upon  which  it  is 
founded.  It  contains  the  word  of  God  in 
all  its  forms  of  literatui'e.  It  is  also  the 
vehicle  of  revelation  to  the  inquiring'  mind 
and  longing-  heart.  Protestants  have  made 
no  mistake  in  reverting-  to  it  as  life-g-iving- 
and  authoritative.  It  will  continue  to  be 
both  of  these  when  the  fullest  and  freest 
Biblical  criticism  shall  have  done  its  his- 
torical, psychological  and  literary  work 
upon  it.  It  will  be  found  to  ^aeld  a  much 
more  wholesome  authority  than  under  its 
uncriticised  form  of  infallibility. 

Many  may  stop  contented  with  inragina- 
tion  on  the  standpoint  of  Church  services, 
with  their  symbolism  and  ceremonial  ob- 
servances. Others,  less  aesthetic,  stop  on 
the  more  abstract  form  of  dog-ma,  or  or- 
thodox belief.  Vulgar  Romanism  and 
Orthodoxy  illustrate  these  two  phases  of 
conception,  of  sensuous  and  mental  idola- 
try, both  of  which  are  normal  phases  in  the 
rehg-ious  process. 


60  BE  AS  ON  AND  AUTHORITY 

(b.)  Reflection,  Criticism  and  Doubt. 

The  period  of  reflection.  Reflection,  in- 
deed, forms  a  part  of  the  activitj^  which 
receives  and  forms  definite  religious  con- 
ceptions and  right  belief.  But  it  does  not 
stop  here.  The  normal  activity  of  this 
phase  impels  on  to  a  criticism  of  tradition, 
al  and  current  conceptions  on  its  way  to  a 
comprehension  of  the  necessit^y  of  religion 
and  an  estimate  of  their  comparative  worth 
and  real  validity.  Perfect  representation 
or  conception  of  God  is  intrinsicalh^  impos- 
sible, either  in  the  form  of  pictured  or  of  ab- 
stract symbol.  Thought,  in  seeking-  this, 
has  abstracted  the  essence  of  all  its  s^an- 
bols  or  precipitated  them  into  deflnite  and 
logical  forms,  and  annexed  reasons  thereto. 
The  reflective  activity  now  impels  to  an 
examination  of  these  forms,  and  of  the  rea- 
sons alleged  for  them.  It  is  essentially^ 
critical  and  inevitably  skeptical.  It  real- 
izes the  limitations  and  contradictions  of 
attained   conceptions.      It  then   seeks   to 


77V  RELIGION.  61 

vindicate  them  by  rationalistic  investi- 
gations and  evidences,  only  to  multiply 
doubts. 

Saintly  Doubt. 

This  is  a  necessary  phase  in  the  life  of 
every  ing-enuously  thoug-htful-  Christian 
and  Church.  It  is  tlie  work  of  the  spirit 
criticising-  its  o\\  n  inadequate  creation.  It 
is  the  noi^mal  activit}^  of  the  human  spirit 
responsive  to  new  revelations  from  the 
Divine  Spirit.  It  is  not  an  alien  force,  but 
the  implicit  infinite  energizing  through 
and  above  the  inadequate  forms  of  its 
hitherto  realization  in  the  finite  spirit. 
Such  criticism  is  the  normal  activit^^  of  the 
growing  human  spirit  responsive  to  the 
Divine  Spirit's  new  revelation,  of  which  it 
may  scarcely  be  conscious.  The  ad vocatus 
diaboli  cannot  prevent  the  canonization  of 
such  temporary  doubt  as  sane  and  saintly. 
Dogma  making  and  dogma  sustaining, 
straining,  breaking  and  re-formation  are 
all-tlie  normal  work  of  the  same  phase  of 
thought,  as  understanding,  on  its  way  to 


68  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

the  comprehension  of  the  concrete  ration- 
aUty  of  catholic  S3aiibols.  It  must  reflect 
upon  the  various  musts  which  have 
hitherto  been  controlling-.  It  is  the  in- 
herently just  and  normal  demand  of  the 
human  spirit  to  know  the  source  and 
g-round  of  these  musts  ;  to  find  a  rationale 
of  the  authority-  of  Bible,  Church  and 
reason. 

The  authority  of  Bible  and  Church 
ma}^  be  rudel}^  questioned  by  the  rea- 
son that  finall}^  questions  itself.  Its  aim 
is  to  see  what  it  is  in  them  that  makes 
the  Bible,  Church  and  reason  worthy  au- 
thorities. Much  of  this  criticism  is  directed 
ag-ainst  accidental,  temporary  and  local 
conceptions  of  Christianity,  which  are  in- 
herently false  to  its  spirit  and  purpose.  It 
is  the  attempt  to  reconceive  Christ  under 
the  chang-ed  conditions  of  modern  science 
and  thouglit.  This  task  of  reformation  is; 
laid  upon  many  Christians  and  many  ag'Cf-. 
What  we  call  revivals  and  reformations 
are  only  more  emphatic  working's  of  this 


IN  RELIGION.  63 

spirit  in  the  Christian  community.  It  is 
the  dj^namic  of  the  Christian  Zeitgeist 
itself  impelhng"  to  more  comprehensive  and 
vital  knowledge  of  Christ,  and  should  lead, 
on  tlie  one  hand,  to  the  throwing*  aside  the 
accumulated  rubbish  of  other  periods,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  the  recovering  and 
holding  fast  all  that  is  good  in  previous 
forms  of  Christianity.  From  the  mother's 
knee  to  the  grave,  from  Bethlehem  to  the 
New  Jerusalem,  the  Christian  man  and 
Church  have  this  reflective,  critical  task 
to  perform,  in  order  to  advance  in  Chris- 
tian knowledge  and  life.  It  is  a  process  of 
negating  truth  by  affirming  fuller  truth. 

Half  of  current  scepticism  comes  fromf 
the  pressing  upon  this  generation  outgrown  ■ 
conceptions  and  imperfect  developments  of 
the  gospel.  To  acknowledge  frankly  the 
necessary  imperfection  of  progress  is  not 
to  detra(;1,  iVom  the  gospel,  but  is  to  take 
away  the  eage  of  half  the  criticism.  To 
attempt  a  readjustment  of  the  letter  to 
the  spirit  of   Christianity;   to  reconceive 


64  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Christianity,  if  3^ou  will,  in  terras  of  modern 
tboug-ht  and  imagery  ;  to  put  the  spirit  in 
new  forms  :  to  abrogate  the  old  letter  in 
its  fulfilment  in  the  new — something  like 
this  is  the  problem  set  for  the  defender  of 
the  faith  to-day.  To  acknowledge  that 
Christianity  has  often  been  bound  up  with 
false  views  of  science,  history,  philosophy 
and  politics,  and  with  poor  mechanical 
views  of  God,  the  world  and  man,  and 
that  to-day  we  are  tr3^ing  to  free  the  spirit 
from  these  limitations  and  from  the  letter 
of  theological  and  ecclesiastical  dogmatism 
with  which  it  has  been  unduly  hampered, 
is  to  win  sympathetic  hearing*  and  help, 
when  otherwise  we  would  meet  Avith  no 
vital  response. 

When  this  critical  activit}^  is  abstract,  it 
busies  itself  with  finding  grounds  or  rea- 
sons pro  and  con.  It  takes  Christianity 
out  of  its  concrete  process  and  treats  it  ab- 
stractly as  chiefly  logical  definitions.  It 
proves  and  disproves  and  generally  ends, 
unless  it  becomes  concrete,  in  that  negative 
form  which  should  onl^^  be  a  mid  station. 


IN  RELIGION.  65 

This  abstract  criticism  is  known  as  that  of 
common  rationalism.  The  A.ufhlaerung y 
J^claircissement  and  Rationalism  were 
the  three  national  forms  of  the  '*age  of 
reason."  The  eighteenth  century  should 
have  sufficed  for  this  narrow  sort  of  mental 
work,  and  the  nineteenth  century  should 
have  gone  on  with  the  affirmative  pro- 
cess. But  it  continues  in  its  senile  form 
of  agnosticism.  It  has  ultimatelj^  doubted 
itself  as  the  organ  of  truth.  Not  much 
has  been  lost  by  this  last  stage,  for  its 
most  positive  result  was  a  form  of  natural 
religion,  or  Deism,  wliich  dried  up  the  rich 
fountain  of  spiritual  life,  having  a  God 
who  was  little  better  than  *^  a  frost-bitten 

reality." 

Sinful  Doubt, 

It  is  only  when  the  spirit's  activity  d  roops 
and  stops  its  work  at  this  abstract  nega- 
tive stage,  that  doubt  can  be  called  sinfiiJ. 
It  is  then  putting  the  absolute  emphasis 
on  subjective  reason.  It  is  then  non- 
human,    non-rational,   a  violation  of  tlie 


66  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

binding  relation  between   God   and  man 

throug-b  historical  and  social  media.   Such 

absolute  negativity  of  subjectivism  is  the 

very  essence  of  the  devil.     No  one  is  more 

to  be   pitied   and   no   oue  is  more   to   be 

dreaded  than  the  man  who  has  stuck  fast 

in  the  mire  of  tliis  standpoiut.     The  truly 

human  cries  out, 

"Great  God,  I'd  rather  be 
A  pagan,  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn  !" 

It  is  the  natural  penalty  of  thought  ab- 
stracted from  action  and  institution.  It  is 
the  penalty  of  boldiug-  to  Christianity  as 
chiefly  logical  doctrine.  For  belief  is 
rarely  the  outcome  of  formal  logical  pro- 
cedure. Conci*ete  Christianity  is  also 
Catholicism,  as  well  as  orthodoxy  and 
Protestantism.  The  East  and  the  West 
and  the  New  West  ai'e  only  elements  of 
its  org-anic  life.  Atlenipts  to  vindicate 
any  of  these,  abstracted  from  the  whole, 
necessarilv  lead  to  doubt  and  disbelief. 


Faith,  as  the  Ground  of  much  Skejjt 
Much  of  the  prevalent  skepticism,  ho 


ICIS711. 


IN  RELIGION.  67 

ever,  is  earnest,  serious,  wistful,  and  not 
Mephistopheiian.  It  is  within  the  Church 
in  whicli  its  mart3a"s  have  been  nurtured. 
It  is  normal.  Puritanism,  in  its  da}^  and 
Anglo- CathoUcism  both  doubted,  protested 
and  deformed  as  well  as  reformed  the  con- 
temporary forms  of  faith  and  life.  They 
appealed  from  a  present  to  a  higher  con- 
ception of  Christianit3^  The  New  Theol- 
ogy is  but  another  illustration  of  the  same 
activity.  Faith  is  at  the  bottom  of  such 
work.  It  is  the  outworking  of  a  higher 
conception  of  Christianity  in  the  common 
Christian  consciousness.  The  real  ground 
of  criticism  is  here  the  real  ground  of  cer- 
titude in  this  transition  epoch.  It  is  faith's 
apprehension  of  a  deeper  and  larger 
revelation  breaking  forth  from  fettered 
Bible,  Church  and  reason.  It  is  the  spirit 
negating  in  order  to  reform  its  inadequate 
conceptions— often,  indeed,  only  an  effort 
to  understand,  that  it  may  hold  with 
stronger  conviction  its  catholic  heritage. 
In  this  is  seen  the  infinite  cunning  of  the 


68  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

guiding  Spirit  in  spiritual]}^  minded  men 
and  in  the  Christian  community.  It  is 
letting  doubt  have  its  way  wliile  using  it 
as  an  instrument  to  acconiplisli  higlier 
aims.  The  uoi'mal  end  of  such  donbt  is  a 
comprehension  of  tlie  natural  and  persist- 
ent CO -relation  and  co- working  of  the 
Divine  and  human  s[)irit  in  historic  pro- 
cess, which  explains  and  vindicates  at 
comparative  wortli  all  previous  concep- 
tions and  institutions. 

Religions  Knowlrdge  Conditioned  by  the 
Incarnation. 

This  can,  fi'om  the  nature  of  the  case, 
now  come  only  fron  a  genuine  compre- 
hension of  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation  and 
its  historic  effect  in  life,  thought  and  insti- 
tution. The  religio:i  o  the  Incarnation  is 
the  concrete  form  of  reason  that  meets  and 
fulfils  the  outworn  abstract  reason  of  this 
stage.  It  is  born  into  a  compi-ehension  of 
that  which  is.  H.tving  proved  to  its  satis- 
faction in  agnosticism  that  its  own  sub- 
jective ideals  Avere  not  rational,  it  turns  to 


IN  RELIGION.  69 

the  real  to  tiiid  the  concrete  objective 
rational.  If  it  arrives  (at  a  comprehensive 
view)  at  a  philosophy  of  history  at  all,  it 
must'  find  in  the  reliiiion  of  the  Incarna- 
tion the  ripest  and  ultimate  form  of 
rationality.  With  Aristotle  philosophy 
was  a  thoughtful  comprehension  of  the 
encyclopaedia  of  Greek  life  and  experience ; 
with  Heg-el  it  was  the  same  speculative 
compreliensiou  of  the  concrete  experience 
of  Christendom.  That  is  the  objective 
matter  of  this  phase  of  the  activity  of 
thought  which  Ave  have  called 

(c.)    Comprehension,  the  highest  form  of 
knou'i7ig. 

We  are  cliiefly  concerned  now  with  the 
mode  of  its  activity,  rather  than  with  its 
contents.  Its  mode  is  that  of  insight, 
sj^stem,  of  correlation  of  all  relativities 
into  a  self-related  organic  process.  It  is 
philosophy  loolviiig  behind  and  before  all 
previous  phases  and  comprehending  them 
as  vital  elements  of  a  totality.     It  is  con- 


70  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Crete  experience  taking  full  account  of 
itself,  winging"  its  flight  from  both  earthly 
and  airy  abstractions.  It  is  the  incoming 
of  the  tidal  wave,  to  flood  the  little  pools 
left  here  and  there,  and  to  restore  their 
continuitj^  with  the  great  ocean.  It  is  an 
overcoming  of  previous  standpoints  in  one 
that  correlates  and  embraces  them  all  in 
a  system  which  is  self-related.  It  rises 
to  the  conception  of  the  necessit}^  of  self- 
consciousness,  which  is  perfect  freedom. 
The  heart  of  this  system  is  the  primal, 
persistent  and  vital  bond  between  God 
and  man,  or  religion.  The  result  of  its 
activity,  as  I  have  said,  is  conditioned  by 
its  subject-matter  to-day.  That  subject- 
matter  is  the  religion  of  the  Incarnation  ; 
and  philosophy  only  reaches  its  ultimate 
insight  by  a  comprehension  of  that  ivhich 
is. 

With  many  Christian  thinkers  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  spirit  does  not  persist  unto 
this  goal,  where  the  wounds  of  reason  are 
healed  by  reason ;    Avhere  the  ground  of 


IN  RELIGION.  71 

authority  is  self-contained  and  self -neces- 
sitated throu^'li  a  pi'ofound  synthesis  of 
them  all.  Either  dog'tna  or  doubt  catches 
and  holds  them.  The^'^  remain  in  either 
one  or  the  other  of  these  phases  of  com- 
mon rationalism.  And  yet  the  spirit's 
demand  and  possibility  is  to  make  this 
eiri  ueherwundener  Stcmdpunkt.  Often 
it  is  onl}^  implicitly  overcome.  It  is  over- 
come in  that  vital  act  of  faith  which  we 
may  call  abbreviated  knowledg*e.  It  is 
overcome  practically,  but  not  in  the  way 
of  thoug-ht. 

The  Function  of  Philosophy. 

Philosoph}"  is  only  the  making-  explicit 
for  thoug"ht  what  is  contained  in  the  ordi- 
nary Christian  consciousness  ;  only  seeing* 
the  necessity  of  the  real  freedom  in  God's 
service;  the  realization  of  the  bond  be- 
tween God  and  man  contained  in  the 
consciousness  of  pardon,  peace  and  com- 
munion with  God  throug'h  the  incarnate 
Word.     It  is   the  discovery  of  the  logic 


73  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

of  the  Logos  in  Cliristian  experience  and 
history.  It  accepts  Christianity  as  the 
manifestation,  the  positive  form  of  the 
absolute  relig'ion,  affirming-  in  its  doctrine 
of  the  incarnation  the  essential  kinship  of 
the  human  with  the  Divine  Spirit.  It  is 
the  onl}^  thing'  that  will  save  those  who 
have  passed  into  the  critical,  doubting- 
stag-e,  from  either  a  hopeless  skepticism 
or  an  arbitrary  submission  to  a  non- 
intellig'ent  power,  which  is  the  essence  of 
superstition. 

Unsophisticated  piety  has  no  need  of 
this.  But  how  little  of  current  relig-ion 
is  unsophisticated.  How  thoroug-hly  the 
rationalism  of  the  understanding-  has  laid 
hold  upon  the  majority  of  Christians.  They 
are  asking-  and  seeking-  earnestly  for  rea- 
sons for  their  religion .  Current  apologet- 
ics, or  external  reasons,  may  temporarih^ 
satisfy  many.  But  their  inadequacy  is 
also  keenly  realized  by  man^^  others. 
They  demand  a  sufficient  reason,  an  ade- 
quate First  Principle,  which  validates  all 


IN  RELIGION.  73 

proofs  and  authorities.  Reflection,  or  the 
mere  reasoning-  of  the  understanding-,  is 
incapable  of  reaching-  this.  The  only  ques- 
tion then  is,  whether  thoug-ht  shall  and 
can  persist  to  its  fruition,  or  whether  the 
spirit  shall  faint  in  hopeless  ag-nosticism, 
offering-  itself  an  unworthy  sacrifice  to 
either  doubt  or  dog-ma.  But  here  we 
must  not  neg-lect  the  value  of  the  jjracti- 
cal  reason,  the  demand  for  religion  in  our 
nature,  and  the  adequac3'  of  current  forms 
to  meet  this  demand.  We  shall  find  that 
the  theoretical  can  never  reach  its  con- 
vincing- result  without  inclusion  of  the 
practical  reason. 

In  this  work  thoug-ht  passes  in  appre- 
ciative critical  review  all  the  categ-ories 
which  it  has  hitherto  used  in  rationalizing- 
experience,  impelled  onward  to  an  abso- 
lute First  Principle  which  will  include  and 
explain  them  all ;  that  is,  it  seeks  for  a 
self-related  and  self- relating-  system,  or 
a  science  of  forms  of  thought,  some  of 
which  Theolog-y,  as  well  as  Science,  uses 


74  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

in  its  woriv.  It  is  restless  till  it  rests  in  a 
sufficient  First  Principle,  adequate  to  ex- 
plain all  experience.  Being-,  substance, 
force,  cause,  co-relation,  external  finality, 
an  extra-mundane  Deity  arbitrarily  cre- 
ating- and  destroying-,  are  categ-ories  which, 
when  used  as  first  principles,  give  rise  to 
positivism,  pantheism,  idealism,  deism 
and  ag-nosticism.  But  concrete  relig'ious 
experience  to-da^^  is  such  as  to  render  all 
such  interpretations  inadequate.  The  ab- 
stract supernaturalism  of  much  theolog-y, 
as  well  as  abstract  mechanical  natural- 
ism, has  failed  to  reach  the  adequate  con- 
ception of  God  which  makes  creation, 
the  incarnation  and  restoration  possible. 
Thoug-ht  is  restless  beyond  these  concep- 
tions till  it  reaches  the  thoug-ht  of  an 
Absolute  Self-consciousness  who  manifests 
himself  creativel^^  in  the  finite  Avorld  and 
man,  binding-  them  back  to  himself.  It 
declines  an^^  conception  which  makes  na- 
ture, man  and  God  to  be  discordant  and 
irreconcilable  ideas.     It  is  especiall^^  con- 


IN  RELIGION.  75 

cerned  to  find  the  conception  which  binds 
man  and  God  in  the  cong-enial  bond  which 
religion  implies.  Beginning-  with  the  in- 
dividual finite  mind,  it  passes  through  all 
the  encompassing  social  circles,  finding  in 
the  highest  no  place  for  "  the  religion  of 
humanit3^"  Religion  demands  a  bond 
with  a  super-humanity. 

Beginning  with  the  conception  of  an 
abstract  supra-mundane  Deity,  it  passes 
through  all  theories  of  creation  till  it 
reaches  the  conception  of  the  concrete  ab- 
solute Self-consciousness  th?it  must  create, 
and  realize  himself  in  his  offspring.  Ab- 
stract mechanical  necessit^^  of  course,  is 
here  entirely  out  of  the  question.  It  is 
the  free  necessity  of  his  own  concrete 
triune  Personality  which  leads  to  creation 
and  its  culmination  in  the  Incarnation. 
Such  a  First  Principle  contains  in  its  very 
nature  organic  bond  with  his  off  spilng. 

The  Necessity  of  Religious  Certitude. 
And  in  the  light  of  this  alone  is  finite 


76  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

spirit,  its  nature,  history  and  destiny,  in- 
telligible.  Here  religion  is  seen  to  be 
necessary.  Its  elements  of  revelation  and 
faith  are  in  the  reciprocal  process  of  the 
Divine  Spirit  to  the  human,  and  of  the 
human  spirit  to  the  divine. 

Philosophy  does  not  create  this  concep- 
tion of  the  First  Principle  out  of  nothing*. 
It  is  not  an  abstract  a  prioi^i  conception. 
It  is  the  logical  ultimate  and  the  chrono- 
logical presupposition  of  all  the  other  cate- 
gories under  which  experience  is  alone 
possible  for  man.  These  categories  or 
conditions  of  thinking  can  only  be  found 
by  reflection  upon  actual  experience.  Phi- 
losophy is  sim  ply  the  science  of  these  cate- 
gories, implicit  in  the  experience  even  of 
the  most  unreflecting,  some  of  them  be- 
coming more  explicit  in  the  special  sciences. 
It  is  not  a  knowledge  of  all  things,  but  a 
comprehension  of  the  underlying  condi- 
tions of  all  knowledge  in  a  s^^stem  with  an 
adequate  concrete  generic  First  Principle. 
Here  its  special  insight  is  directed  to  the 


IN  RELIGION.  77 

theological  conditions  of  religious  experi- 
ence, or,  in  particular,  of  the  content  of 
the  Christian  consciousness  as  to  sin  and 
redemption,  or  of  alienated  and  of  restored 
communion  (religion)  with  God  through 
Jesus  Christ.  In  other  words,  it  aims  at 
comprehensive  insight  into  the  rationality 
of  Christian  experience,  or  at  philosophi- 
cal theology  founded  upon  historical  and 
dogmatic  theology. 

It  does  not  destro^^  or  transcend  relig- 
ion, which  is  the  most  vital  realization  of 
the  bond  between  God  and  man.  Religion 
is  the  highest,  the  complete  practical,  re- 
conciliation, and  is  not  destined  to  lose  it- 
self in  philosophy.  Philosophy'  does  not 
set  itself  above  religion,  but  only  above 
partial  and  contiictiug  interpretations  of 
its  experience.  It  leads  us  to  know  for 
thought  and  in  thought,  as  reasonable  and 
true  and  holy,  what  religion  is  as  life  and 
experience.  It  validates  this  experience 
for  thought.  It  gives  the  highest  author- 
ity to  religion,  b^^  demonstrating  its  abso- 


78  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

lute  necessity.  It  readies  the  ultimate 
ground,  of  certitude,  which  was  only  im- 
plicit and   unthoug'ht  of   in  the  stage  of 

feeling. 

Philosophy  of  History. 

It  reaches,  too,  certitude  as  to  objec- 
tive religion.  It  sees  the  necessit^^  and 
worth  of  all  creeds  and  institutions  as 
the  outcome  of  the  religious  bond — the 
work  of  the  spirit  of  man  inspired  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  in  a  course  of  divine  educa- 
tion of  the  race.  This  spirit  of  compre- 
hension is  never  envious.  It  often  roman- 
ticizes, growing  tender  and  reverent  in  its 
appreciation  of  the  forms  of  the  earlier 
stages  in  which  it  has  been  nourished.  If 
it  has  passed  thoroughly  through  the 
skeptical  stage,  it  can  never  be  ungener- 
ous in  its  estimate  of  either  dogma  or  doubt. 
Its  insight  into  the  truth  of  tlie  heart  of 
all  religion ;  its  ripe  conviction  of  the  neces- 
sary org-anic  communion  of  God  and  man; 
its  comprehension  of  the  process  of  the 
Divine   Education,  or    its  philosophy    of 


IN  RELIGION. 

history,  enables  it  to  find  itself,  to  make 
itself  at  home  at  the  humblest  domestic 
altar  as  well  as  in  the  grandest  cathedral, 
always  holding- the  critical  faculty  in  abey- 
ance, as  having-  been  satisfied  once  for  all. 
It  thus  gives  the  hig'hest  authority  in  re- 
lig-ion,  as  deduced  from  and  implied  in 
itself,  as  necessary.  Holy  and  reverent  is 
this  spirit  of  nisig'ht,  for  it  is  the  ver^^ 
Spirit  of  God  whicli  has  bound  the  devil 
of  doubt — a 

'*  Part  of  that  power,  not  understood, 
Which  always  wills  the  bad,  and  always  works 
the  good." 

Philosophy  of  Religion. 

It  does  not  place  itself  above  religion, 
again,  because  it  is  the  child  of  religion. 
It  reaches  its  conception  of  God  onl^^  be- 
cause religion  has  already  realized  the 
essential  bond  between  God  and  man.  In 
particular,  it  is  the  child  of  Christianity — 
the  thoughtful  comprehension  of  its  own 
experience.     This  starts  from  the  culmi- 


80  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

nation  of  the  historical  manifestation  of 
the  bond  betAveen  God  and  man.  Jesus 
Christ  manifested  this  bond  perfectly.  He 
was  a  man  manifesting-  perfect  absolute 
union  Avith  God.  Rational  truth  can 
onl}^  be  apprehended  on  condition  of  its 
existence  in  natural  and  secular  form.  It 
must  be  immanent  in  a  historical  process. 
The  man  Jesus  did  not  primarily  appeal 
to  thought.  He  liA'ed  his  practical  life  in 
the  world.  He  came  unto  his  o\A^n,  and 
AA'on  them  by  his  life.  He  became  the  ful- 
filment of  the  supernatural  order  implicit 
in  all  previous  history,  the  consummation 
of  the  self- necessitated  DiAdne  act  of  crea- 
tion in  time.  Here  the  hitherto  immanent 
and  constitutional  co-AA^orking  of  God  AAith 
man  came  to  perfect  manifestation.  God 
became  man  because  humanitj^  Avas  an 
essential  phase  of  his  own  life.  Here  his 
perfect  self -consciousness  AA^as  manifested. 
Son  of  man  and  Son  of  God  AA^ere  manifest- 
ed as  congenial  and  inherent  parts  of 
the  DiAine  Self-consciousness.     Here  vA^as 


IN  RELIGION.  81 

reached  the  axis  of  the  world's  history,  or, 
for  what  concerns  us  at  present,  the  axis 
of  the  world's  thought  about  God  and 
man ;  for  we  are  still  abstracting-  the  con- 
crete thought  from  the  more  concrete  pro- 
cess of  Christian  life  and  institution. 

Modern  Thought  as  Christian  Thought. 

Christian  thought,  w^iich  is  modern 
thought,  starts  from  the  sensuous  life  of 
Christ  and  continues  following  the  secular 
extension  of  this  life  in  humanity.  This 
has  been  the  woof  of  which  thought  has 
been  the  warp  in  the  concrete  web  of  the 
modern  world.  Previous  philosophy  had 
been  an  attempted  comprehension  of  the 
relation  of  God  and  man  as  manifested  in 
human  experience.  With  the  advent  of 
Christ  came  new  and  fuller  experience.  It 
did  not  appeal  primarily  to  thought.  The 
practical  experience  of  this  life  and  its  ex- 
tension in  the  life  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity came  first.  But  thinking  is  an 
inherent  human  necessitv  which  continued 


82  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

in  the  Christian  community.  It  was  self- 
necessitated  to  reflect  upon  and  express  in 
intellectual  forms  the  content  of  its  expe- 
rience. The  thought  activity  was  new 
only  as  modified  b^'^  its  subject  matter. 
Thoughtful  men,  men  trained  in  philoso- 
phy, became  Christians,  and  Christians  be- 
came thoughtful.  Hence  Christian  doc- 
trines, and  ultimately  Christian  creeds. 
These  represent  the  most  catholic  thought 
of  the  intellectual  aristocracy  of  the  com- 
munity, thinking  upon  the  content  of 
catholic  experience.  They  claimed  the 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  graduall3^ 
leading  them  into  all  truth.  The  Nicene 
symbol  represents  the  highest  and  the 
most  oecumenical  expression  of  this  cath- 
olic thought.  This  gives  its  authority  to 
the  completed  Nicene  symbol. 

Use  of  the  Nicene  Symbol. 

There  are  parts  of  this  s^^mbol  which 
can  have  their  proper  authority  onl}^  to 
those  who  can  think  themselves  into  its 


IN  RELIGION.  83 

definitions  and  see  how  it  states  ultimate 
thoug-ht.  Such  thought  should  be  the 
g'oal  of  all  Christian  thinking  or  theology. 
But  all  such  knowledge  is  an  approximate 
development  toward,  rather  than  an  ac- 
tual attainment.  In  the  highest  specu- 
lative thought  and  in  the  most  oecu- 
menical creed  we  still  know  only  in  part. 
But,  for  the  understanding  of  the  Nicene 
symbol,  this  speculative  thought  is  neces- 
sary, as  is  also  a  knowledge  of  the  whole 
history  of  the  age  which  gave  birth  to  it. 
Hence  its  general  use  in  public  worship  is 
not  to  be  desired.  Repeating,  parrot-like, 
forms  of  sound  doctrine  without  any  con- 
ception of  their  sense,  is  a  pagan  custom 
that  we  need  not  encourage.  The  Nicene 
symbol  has  its  proper  use  in  church-coun- 
cils and  clerical  meetings.  But  perhaps 
this  would  be  too  great  a  restriction.  One 
can  join  with  the  great  congregation  of 
saints  of  the  centuries  in  hymning  this  be- 
lief in  the  full  divinity  and  the  real  man- 
hood of  Jesus  Christ. 


84  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Non-CEcumenioal  Theology  and  Theo- 
ries. 

Our  discussion  implies  a  distinction  be- 
tween what  is  authoritative  for  comprehen- 
sive thought,  and  the  much  larger  part  of 
dogma  which  consists  of  metaphorical  con- 
ceptions, partial  theories  and  inadequate 
definitions  which  are  local  and  transient — 
at  best,  onl3^  truth  in  the  making.  It  is 
this  portion,  too,  about  which  much  of 
the  anxious  thought  and  controversy  and 
doubt  of  our  day  is  concerned.  To  this 
part  belong  theories  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible,  of  the  atonement,  of  future  pun- 
ishment, of  the  method  of  the  creation  of 
nature  and  of  man.  Must  I  believe  them  ? 
Do  we  believe  them  ?  Have  they  believed 
them  ?  If  so,  which  one  of  them,  and  why  ? 
Here  the  history  of  Christian  doctrine  can 
aid  us  greatly.  It  shows  that  none  of  these 
theories  have  passed  through  the  oecumeni- 
cal Avork  of  comprehensive  thought. 

To  the  doubting  and  harassed  Christian 


IN  RELIGION.  85 

asking-  what  must  I  believe  as  to  many 
traditional  and  current  conceptions,  we 
ma}^  answer  :  Believe  them  only  so  far  as, 
from  a  study  of  their  histor^^,  you  can  see 
them  to  be  necessary  implications  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Incarna-tipn.  Take  them 
at  a  i:;elative  rationality,  as  more  or  less 
harmonious  with  the  general  Christian 
sentiment. 

The  Laiv  of  Liberty  also  the  Law  of 
Duty. 
The  oecumenical  creed  is  here  a  law  of 
libert3^  But  it  is  also  a  law  of  duty.  We 
not  only  may,  but  we  must  freely  investi- 
gate the  grounds  and  worth  of  all  other 
conceptions.  Biblical  criticism  and  the 
theory  of  creation  by  evolution,  the  doc- 
trines of  the  future  life  and  of  the  atone- 
ment, the  question  of  church  polity  and 
ritual,  all  are  open  questions,  in  the  solu- 
tion of  which  we  must  take  our  part.  The 
authoritative  must  is  here  that  of  free  in- 
vestigation, instead  of  slavish  submission. 


86  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

The  ''  Must  "  of  the  Bible. 

Protestantism  repudiated  the  unethical 
authoritj'  of  an  unhol}^  Church,  but  soon 
yielded  the  same  sort  of  blind  i^everence 
to  the  Bible.  The  change  was  not  wholly 
a  mistake.  It  was  the  most  spiritual  and 
ethical  attitude  that  could  then  be  taken. 
The  evil  grew  out  of  the  abuse  to  which 
all  good  things  are  subject.  Supersti- 
tion changed  this  living  word  into  a  dead 
letter.  It  was  given  the  place  assigned 
by  pagans  to  their  oracles,  or  by  Moham- 
medans to  the  Koran.  Bibliolatry  be- 
came as  real  as  Mariolatry.  Orthodoxy 
was  based  upon  a  literal  interpretation  of 
an  infallible  oracle.  Hence  more  than 
half  the  honest  doubt  of  our  day.  Hence, 
too,  the  form  of  unevidencing  evidences, 
serving  only  to  increase  skepticism. 

But  there  is  a  reformation  rapidly  tak- 
ing place  in  regard  to  the  worth  and  au- 
thority of  the  Bible  almost  as  great  as 
that  accomplished  by  the  Reformation  as 


JA^  RELIGION.  87 

to  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Only 
this  is  an  intellectual,  while  that  was  a 
moral  revolt.  It  may  take  generations 
to  bring  men  generally  to  a  recognition  of 
the  rightful  spiritual  authority  of  the 
Bible,  as  it  has  taken  centuries  to  turn 
the  tide  of  appreciation  in  favor  of  recog- 
nizing the  rightful  and  necessary  author- 
ity^ of  the  Church. 

Certainly  it  is  not  to  be  overlooked 
that  a  total  revolution  has  taken  place  in 
our  day  in  the  conception  of  the  method  of 
revelation  and  inspiration.  Our  Bishops, 
in  their  late  Pastoral  Letter,  acknowledge 
that  the  '^  advances  made  in  Biblical  re- 
search have  added  a  hol}^  splendor  to  the 
crown  of  devout  scholarship,'^  and  mention 
both  ^^  shrinking  superstition  and  irrever- 
ent self-will"  as  earth-born  clouds  that 
tend  to  obscure  its  hol^^  light. 

We  can  barely  indicate  the  reformed 
conception  of  the  Bible  which  is  rapidly 
replacing  the  old  one. 

The  Bible  is  literature.     It    is  sacred 


88  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

literature.  It  is  the  '^  survival  of  the 
fittest  "  of  the  sacred  literature  of  the 
Jews  and  of  the  early  Christians.  Like 
the  creeds,  it  is  the  product  of  the  Church, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  fountain  and  the 
norm  of  Christian  life  and  doctrine.  It  is 
a  record  of  revelation  done  into  history  ; 
a  record  of  the  historical  incarnation  of  the 
Son  of  God,  set  in  a  partial  preparation 
for  it,  and  in  a  partial  result  of  its  primi- 
tive extension.  It  thus  contains  God's 
revelation.  It  is  a  vehicle  of  that  revela- 
tion. It  is  itself  a  revelation  of  God  to 
the  student  of  it,  and  to  the  whole  Church. 
It  is  not  errorless,  or  infallible,  or  of 
equal  value  throug-hout.  It  is  the  Book 
of  the  Church  to  the  Church  and  for  the 
Church.  Hence  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness, rather  than  individuals,  is  the  best 
interpreter  of  it.  It  also,  in  turn,  pro- 
duces and  g-ives  the  norm  of  development 
to  the  life  and  doctrine  of  the  Church.  It 
is  a  living  word,  appealing  to  the  mind 
and  heart  and  conscience  after  criticism 
has  done  its  utmost  work  upon  it. 


IN  RELIGION.  89 

We  still  have  the  Bible.  The  Bible, 
and  the  Bible  only,  is  the  Book  of  the 
Church,  and  the  rule  of  faith.  But  we  do 
not  have — or  we  shall  not,  when  critical 
study  shall  have  finished  its  work — a  word- 
book of  equally  valuable  proof-texts,  in- 
fallible in  toto  et  partihus.  This  crit- 
icism demonstrates  that  the  Bible  is 
a  record  of  divine  revelation  done  into 
human  history  under  the  limitations 
of  the  mental  and  religious  culture  of 
the  people  of  current  times.  All  parts 
are  not  of  equal  value.  Christ  himself 
and  his  apostles  criticised  the  morality 
and  ritual  of  the  Old  Testament.  Our 
Gospels  are  a  fourfold  transcription  of 
inspired  teaching*  in  the  Church  of  the  first 
century.  The  Church  was  before  the  New 
Testament.  It  is  the  Church,  founded 
and  growing  under  the  limitations  of  his- 
torical conditions,  that  gives  us  our  au- 
thentic record  of  the  life  of  Christ.  But 
this  is  by  no  means  to  adopt  the  Roman 
Catholic  method   of  setting  the   Church 


90  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

above  the  Bible.  For  it,  in  turn,  is  that 
to  which  the  Cliurch  confesses  itself  bound 
to  appeal  to  as  the  rule  of  faith.  Good 
Churchmen  now  g'enerally  say  that  the 
orthodox  view  of  the  Bible  as  a  verbally 
infallible  text-book  has  never  been  a 
doctrine  of  the  Catholic  Church.  I  be- 
lieve that  Apolog-etics  should  frankly  con- 
cede this,  and  thus  free  Christianity  from 
the  hundred  criticisms  that  have  force 
onl3^  as  against  such  a  theory — none  what- 
ever against  the  Bible  as  the  Book  of 

books. 

Open  Questions. 

So  as  to  liberty  and  duty  in  regard  to 
other  open  questions.  The  greatest  theo- 
logians of  Christendom  have  always  main- 
tained this.  Only  zealots  and  party  poli- 
ticians have  flourished  an  authoritative 
must  over  Christians  in  such  questions. 
But  this  duty  demands  that  we  shall  try  to 
get  at  the  heart,  at  the  real  significance  of 
such  conceptions  and  theories ;  to  modest- 
ly seek  to  understand  them  before  we  dare 


IN  RELIGION.  91 

call  them  irrational,  after  the  short  and 
easy  method  of  many  self-styled  rational- 
ists. Indeed,  the  historical  method  has 
larg-ely  replaced  this  negative  rationalistic 
method  even  with  unbelievers.  They,  too, 
thus  find  a  relative  justification  for  what 
they  reject.*  This  much,  at  least,  is  com- 
pelled by  the  incoming-  appreciation  of 
social  and  historical  factors  of  individuals. 
One  can  only  know  through  others,  and  ul- 
timately the  whole  only  through  individ- 
uals. Thus  historical  and  dogmatic  the- 
ology furnish  the  necessary  materials  for 
philosophic  theology.  It  remains  true, 
however,  that  we  can  even  thus  only  accept 
many  traditional  conceptions  and  dogmas 
ill  a  Pickwickian  sense.  Our  belief  in  them 
will  accord  with  Bishop  Pearson's  curi- 
ousl}^  elliptical  definition  of  belief  as  *^  the 
assent  to  that  which  is  credible  as  credi- 


*  A  very  fine  example  of  the  historical  study  of 
dogma  may  be  found  in  an  article  by  Prof.  C.  C. 
Everett,  D.D.,  on  "The  Natural  History  of  Dog- 
ma."    The  Forum,  Dec,  1889. 


93  REASON  AND  A  UTHORITY 

ble  " — i.e.,  belief  is  belief  in  that  which 
is  believable  as  believable. 

But  here  we  are  still  in  the  sphere  of 
the  liberty  and  duty  of  criticising-  inade- 
quate metaphors  and  opinions.  The  task 
is  how  best  to  conceive  or  re-conceive 
Christianity  throug-h  aid  of  past  concep- 
tions, and  also  throug-h  the  aid  of  the 
chang-ed  conceptions  furnished  by  mod- 
ern science  and  culture.  We  cannot  be 
chained  to  winged  or  to  petrified  meta- 
phors of  a  past,  whose  whole  material  for 
imagination  was  very  different  from  that 
of  our  times.  We  cannot  accept  them  as 
authoritative,  but  must  create  the  best  we 
can,  which  will  be  as  cong-enially  authori- 
tative to  us  as  theirs  were  to  them.  More 
cannot  be  demanded.  The  modern  ideal 
of  knowledge  is  drawn  on  the  canvas  of  a 
progressive  education  of  the  race.  It  is 
in  accordance  with  this  ideal  that  the 
most  authoritative  truth  for  one  people  or 
age  ma^^  have  but  relative  validity  for 
another.     Nor  should  the  value  of  meta- 


IN  RELIGION.  93 

phor  and  abstract  dogma  as  media  of  the 
divine  revelation  be  overlool<:ed  in  this 
criticism  of  their  worth  as  scientific  knowl- 
edge- Only  we  must  not  seek  in  them 
ultimate  ground  of  authority.  As  we  pass 
through  self -compelled  criticism  from  one 
conception  to  another,  we  are  finding  our 
real  ground  to  be  *^the  unit}^  of  identity 
and  difference,"  of  dogma  and  doubt. 
The  new  is  better  than  the  old  only  as  it 
contains  the  old  as  a  vital,  though  trans- 
muted, element. 

Inadequacy  of  Mere  Theoretical  Knowl- 
edge. 
But  even  in  the  most  concrete  historical 
and  philosophic  view  of  truth  we  are  still 
too  abstract.  We  are  studying  Chris- 
tianity as  if  it  were  chiefly  a  system  of 
intellectual  truth.  We  are  abstracting 
the  web  from  the  woof,  the  Logos  of  the 
incarnation  from  the  whole  of  its  practical 
extension.  We  have  acknowledged  that 
Christianity  must  be  done  into  history. 


94  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

into  concrete  life  and  institution,  before  it 
could  be  seen  to  be  reason,  just  as  the 
earthly  life  of  Christ  was  essential  to  the 
seeing"  him  as  the  Logos.  Philosophy, 
then,  must  revert  to  this.  Christianity  is 
more  than  feeling  or  thinking-.  It  is  also 
deed.  Theoretical  cognition  is  not  suffi- 
cient. 

"  Grey,  friend,  is  all  theory ;  green 

Is  the  golden  tree  of  life." 


PART  III. 

RELIGION   AS   WILLING. 

We  have,  then,  to  notice  the  third  form 
in  which  religion  manifests  itself — that  of 
willing. 

Comprehension  has  to  embrace  not  only 
the  grey  form  of  right  thinking,  but  also 
the  green  tree  of  golden  fruit — the  exten- 
sion of  the  incarnation  in  the  practical  life 
of  the  social  body.  Religion  is  not  merely 
the  feeling  or  seeing  the  bond  between 
God  and  man ;  it  is  also  the  determination 


IN  RELIGION.  95 

of  life  by  the  bond.  It  is  willing-  to  be 
God-like.  This  is  the  building-  power,  the 
realizing-  of  the  extension  of  the  incarna- 
tion to  the  sanctifying-  the  whole  of  secu- 
lar life.  It  is  the  Rome-element  con- 
stantly accompanying-  or  preceding"  the 
other  phases  of  religion.  It  posits,  puts 
in  concrete  form  the  certitude  of  both 
feeling-  and  thought.  It  is  founded  upon 
the  rock  of  secular  reality.  It  was  pres- 
ent at  the  g-iving-  of  the  Law  upon  Sinai,  in 
the  formation  of  the  Jewish  Theocracy  and 
building-  its  temple,  as  it  was  in  Rome  be- 
coming- the  imi3eria]  mistress  of  the  secular 
world.  This  bed-rock  certitude  has  never 
left  itself  without  a  witness  and  an  org-an 
in  the  form  of  institutions  which  have 
been  the  media  of  all  our  culture.  This 
has  been  the  activit}^  of  what  Kant  called 
the  *^ Practical  Eeason,'^  or  creative  rea- 
son moulding"  the  concrete  into  accord- 
ance with  its  norm.  It  does  the  truth, 
and  thus  creates  the  forms  which  in  turn 
nourish  and  educate  it. 


96  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

This  Rome-element  Records  Its    Creed 
in  Its  Deed. 

This  Rome-element,  or  the  "  Practical 
Reason,"  is  eternal,  always  placing-  itself 
above  past  history  by  making  new  history, 
but  alwa^^s  vindicating-  past  history  by  the 
new  which  that  past  alone  makes  possible. 
It  may  be  called  the  petrifying  element  of 
religion.  It  catches  and  fixes  in  progres- 
sive stationary  form  the  fleeting  phase  of 
feeling  and  the  restless  dialectic  of  thought, 
and  yet  ever  uses  the  new  and  more  am- 
ple materials  they  furnish  for  its  work. 

Man  does  what  he  thinks.  Man  thinks 
what  he  does.  Man  is  what  he  does. 
If  we  were  compelled  to  choose  between 
any  one  of  these  abstractions,  we  should 
say,  Man  is  what  he  does.  The  will  is 
the  man.  It  is  the  concrete  unity  of  all 
the  elements  of  man.  Any  act  of  will 
is  the  expression  of  the  whole  man  as  he 
is  at  that  time.  It  is  his  character,  his 
law,  his  authority,  his  certitude.     Doing, 


IN  RELIGION.  97 

he  is  ever  org-anizing  his  self,  and  ever 
rising*  on  stepping-stones  of  past  deeds  to 
higher  ones.  Doing,  he  knows  the  doc- 
trine of  God. 

The  Moral  Argumefit  for  Christianity. 

But  man  is  social,  and  pre-eminently  so 
in  religion.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  on 
earth  has  from  the  first  been  a  social  com- 
munity. Its  deed  is  its  real  creed.  Hence 
the  worth  of  what  is  called  the  moral 
argument  for  Christianity^  —  its  visible 
power  in  regenerating*  and  softening  man- 
kind beyond  all  disquisitions  of  philoso- 
phers and  all  exhortations  of  moralists. 
This  is  also  the  truth  in  the  argument  that 
Christianity  is  a  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of 
man,  rather  than  a  creed ;  an  immanent  re- 
generative power,  a  mystical  presence  that 
moves  the  homesick  soul  to  find  its  home 
in  God  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  secular 
life.  This  too  is  the  truth  in  the  argument 
from  personal  experience  of  the  members 
of  this    social  body.      Christianity  finds 


98  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

them,  meets  their  relig-ious  needs,  nourish- 
es their  spiritual  life,  proves  its  adequacy 
to  human  need  in  all  jo^^ful  and  trying*  ex- 
periences. Its  conceptions  of  life,  of  duty, 
of  forgiveness,  of  eternal  life — all  the  deep- 
er moral  and  religious  need^  of  the  human 
heart — are  met  in  the  presentation  of  the 
Gospel  by  the  Church  to  its  members. 
This  social  religion  is  a  religion  of  both 
inspiration  and  consolation.  The  Church 
meets  and  incorporates  the  new-born  babe 
into  its  motherly  bosom  in  holy  baptism. 
Throughout  life  it  lifts  up  its  perpetual 
eucharist  to  meet  his  needs,  whether  he  be 
crying  De  Profundis  or  shouting  In  Ex- 
celsis.  At  death  it  transfers  him  from 
the  home  below  to  the  home  above — from 
the  Church  militant  to  the  Church  trium- 
phant. The  certitude  of  these  blessings 
comes  from  experiencing  them.  It  is  the 
deed  of  Christ's  life  in  the  members  of  his 
social  body. 


IN  RELIGION.  99 

Instituted  Christianity— the  Kingdom 
of  God. 
But  Cliristianitj^  does  not  only  realize 
itself  in  the  practical  life  of  its  members, 
it  also  institutes  itself  in  social  organiza- 
tion.    Here  we  approach  perilous  g-round, 
or  rather,  we  have  to  sail  between  the 
Scylla  of  an  abstract  universal  and  an  ab- 
stract individual  conception  of  the  Church. 
What  is  the  form  of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church  in  which  all    Christians  believe? 
We  would  fain    escape    from  the  strife 
of  tong-ues   by  calling    instituted   Chris- 
tianity the   kingdom   or  the  republic    of 
God — the  communion  of  saints  on  earth. 
That  is  the  comprehensive  truth.       We 
limit  ourselves  to  a  few  expository  state- 
ments. 

Mechanical  and  Ethical  Conceptions  of 
the  Church. 
Our  conception  of  the  Church  depends 
upon  our  conception  of  the  First  Principle. 


100  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

If  God  is  conceived  as  abstract  transcend- 
ence, the  whole  of  religion  necessarily  re- 
ceives a  semi-mechanical  form.  Tran- 
scendence implies  a  dualism,  a  gulf,  rather 
than  a  bond  between  God  and  man,  that 
can  only  be  bridged  in  a  mechanical  way. 
The  incarnation  and  its  extension  alike 
suffer  from  this  partial  conception  of  God. 
Romanism  is  the  standing  illustration  of 
the  form  of  institution  realized  under  this 
conception.  High- Anglicanism  is  but  its 
feebler  counterfeit.  This  form  has  had, 
and  still  has,  in  some  phases  of  civilization, 
its  worth  and  relative  justification.  But 
to-day  it  is  under  the  more  genial  con- 
genial conception  of  the  Divine  immanence 
that  we  get  the  most  comprehensive  view 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  as  the  whole  of  the 
faithful  in  every  form  of  instituted  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  Church  and  the  State. 

There  is  no  universal  external  corporate 
form  that  is  inclusive.     The  Holy  Catholic 


77V  RELIGION.  101 

Church  is  like  the  Universal  State,  that  fed- 
eration of  nations  and  Parliament  of  man 
to  which  individual  states  are  subordinate 
and  org-anic,  and  which  is  the  world's  tri- 
bunal, to  pronounce  and  execute  judgment 
upon  them.  Though  constitutional  mon- 
archy and  Episcopacy  be  essential  to  the 
total  corporate  organization  of  Church  and 
State,  yet  ''one  must  needs  be  stone-blind 
not  to  see  churches  "  and  states  standing 
without  them  to-day.  The  immanent 
Spirit  was  present  in  earlier  forms,  and 
now  He  is  present  in  modern  forms  of 
Church  and  State,  which  have  been  inex- 
tricably interwoven  throughout  history. 
Protestant  communions  are  also  forms  of 
instituted  Christianity,  closely  in  sym- 
pathy with  modern  states,  which  base 
their  constitutions  on  the  principles  of  free- 
dom and  respect  for  personality.  Protes- 
tants necessarily  regard  the  question  of 
policy  or  constitution  from  a  different 
point  of  view  from  that  of  Romanists.  It 
is  not  an  article  of  faith  with  them.     The 


103  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Romanist  conceives  of  instituted  Chris- 
tianity as  a  mechanical,  unethical  form  of 
authority.  We  recognize  its  institution 
as  an  ethical  and  historical  process  of  the 
spirit  immanent  in  Christian  nations  and 
communities.  This  spring-s  from  our  con- 
ception of  the  First  Principle  as  concrete 
Self-Consciousness,  or  Love,  self-necessi- 
tated to  create,  and  to  relate  himself  to 
his  created  offspring.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
philosophy  of  history  which  is  quite  mod- 
ern, and  yet  Christian. 

Greek,  Roman  and  Germanic  Elements 
in  Modern  Christianity. 
Romanism  is  one  phase  of  this  process. 
But  modern  Christendom  has  passed  be- 
yond Rome  as  ultimate.  It  is  largely 
Teutonic  and  Anglo-Saxon.  Still  it  is  only 
a  part  of  a  process  which  must  conserve 
the  Greek  and  Roman  element.  The 
Greek  element  stands  for  philosophy  or 
orthodoxy,  the  Roman  for  law  or  politj^, 
and  the  Anglo-Saxon  for  free  spirit   or 


IN  RELIGION.  103 

ethical  personality.  Creed  and  polity  are 
permanent  elements  which  Protestantism 
must  conserve  with  its  free  spirit,  without 
being  seduced  back  to  the  stagnant  ortho- 
doxy of  the  Greek  Church  or  to  the  terrible 
tyranny  of  Roman  ecclesiasticism.  This 
is  our  task.  It  has  its  dangers,  but  it  is 
a  duty.  The  outworkings  of  the  immanent 
spirit  in  our  times  indicate  this  trend  of 
progress.  The  Christian  consciousness  is 
not  content  with  so  many  Protestant  vari- 
ations.    It  yearns  for  unity. 

We  are  still  in  the  sphere  of  history  in 
the  making,  but  take  our  part  in  it  under 
the  conception  of  the  Divine  immanence. 
This  conception  is  monistic  and  organic. 
It  is  the  category  of  comprehension  or  of 
totality,  self-active  and  self-realizing.  Its 
chief  danger  is  that  of  overlooking  differ- 
ences, instead  of  reducing  them  to  organic 
elements.  But  it  is  the  conception  which 
steers  clear  of  all  subjective  individualism, 
and  is  only  consistent  with  the  social  view 
of  man  in  all  spheres. 


104  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

The   Christian    Consciousness    and 
Authority. 

Thus  it  finds  its  ground  of  autliorit}^ 
in  the  communal  Christian  consciousness, 
and  strives  to  make  this  as  oecumenical 
as  possible.  There  are  always  relatively 
catholic  orthodoxies,  cults  and  institu- 
tions. These  have  been  formative  of  every 
Christian  person.  Only  in  and  through 
life  in  some  form  of  them  has  he  become 
a  Christian.  They  have  been  God-given 
conditions  to  limit,  in  order  to  educe  and 
realize,  the  individual.  To  be  a  member 
of  some  form  of  instituted  Christianity  is 
essential  to  one's  being-  able  to  appreciate 
its  rationality^  It  is  from  within  such 
nurture  that  doubt  may  come  to  force  him 
to  wider  conceptions  or  more  catholic  fel- 
lowship. Authority  after  authority,  as 
teacher  after  teacher,  may  be  transcended 
on  the  way  to  higher  thought  and  life. 
But  it  must  always  be  within  some  con- 
crete form  of  the  Christian  consciousness 


IN  RELIGION.  105 

that  the  authority  and  rationality  of 
Christianity  can  be  seen,  on  the  way  to 
comprehension  and  cathoUcity.  The  ap- 
prehension of  its  rationahty  comes  after 
the  experience  of  having-  our  best-self 
educed  b3^  the  process.  The  larger  our 
fellowship,  the  larger  authority  and  ration- 
ality we  shall  be  able  to  recognize  in  this 
conditioning  Christian  consciousness. 

Instituted  Christianity  needs  and  can 
have  no  grounds  or  evidence  strictly  exter- 
nal. It  vindicates  itself,  as  all  organisms 
do.  For  comprehension,  it  is  reason  done 
into  institution,  the  sum  total  of  the  out- 
come of  the  consciousness  of  the  vital  bond 
between  God  and  man  in  historic  process. 
Religion  to-day  stands  for  the  recognition 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  sonship 
of  social  man,  till  we  all  come  unto  a  per- 
fect manhood.  The  Church  in  every  form 
is  a  partial  organization  of  this  recogni- 
tion. Submission  to  its  authority  in  the 
most  catholic  form  is  the  rational  submer- 
g-ence  of  our  empty  individualism  in  the 


106  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

whole  historic  Ufe  of  the  great  brother- 
hood. This  yielding  is  neither  childlike 
faith  nor  unmanly  superstition.  It  is  the 
yielding  that  should  come  from  compre- 
hensive insight  into  the  vital  and  constitu- 
tive relation  of  a  concrete  whole  to  the 
single  member,  subjective  religion  being 
rendered  possible  only  within  such  a  pro- 
cess. The  historical  is  seen  to  be  the  con- 
stant accompaniment  and  educer  of  the 
psychological  form  of  our  faith,  while  both 
rest  upon  the  metaphysical  ground  of  the 
Divine  adhesion  to  his  own  offspring  in  a 
course  of  education  into  full  sonship. 

To  think  ourselves  into  the  creed,  to  form 
ourselves  into  the  manners,  to  feel  our- 
selves into  the  worship  of  the  Church,  is 
our  highest  rational  duty.  Such  rational 
submission  implies  constant  self-activity. 
This  implies  much  doubt  and  much  self- 
restraint.  Hence  it  is  vastly  different 
from  that  servile,  superstitious  yielding  to 
dogmatic  external  authority  that  rational 


IN  RELIGION.  107 

Christians    will    never    cease    to   protest 
ag-ainst  as  uncatholic. 

Self- Consciousness  and  Certitude. 

A  person  must  always  be  at  home  with 
himself  in  the  content  of  his  self-conscious- 
ness in  order  to  be  rational.  The  creed 
and  cult  of  the  Church  must  be  adopted 
and  self-imposed  through  recognition  of 
their  constitutive  influence  in  his  own  de- 
velopment. But  this  development  he 
knows  can  never  be  in  isolation.  The  ra- 
tional for  himis  the  social  He  lives  and 
moves  and  has  his  being  in  and  through 
social  relations.  The  rational  "  I  believe  " 
thus  rests  psychologically  and  historically 
upon  a  ^' we  believe."  The  rational  "  we 
believe  "  rests  upon  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness of  the  community  of  which  we 
are  organic  members.  This  consciousness 
rests  upon  the  primal  and  perennial  vital 
bond  of  God  with  his  offspring.  Thus  the 
ultimate  g-round  of  authority  and  of  cer- 


108  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY. 

titude  is  God's  adhesion  to  man.  The 
secondary,  or  mediating  ground  of  certi- 
tude for  the  individual,  is  the  Church, 
which  represents  the  adhesion  of  man  to 
God,  through  consciousness  of  this  bond. 


CHAPTEE   II. 

AUTHORITY  IN  RELIGION* 


Two  Notable    Books    on  Authority  in 
Religion. 

The  two  g-reat  books  in  the  English  re- 
ligious world  this  year  are  Dr.  Martin- 
eau's  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion  and 
the  new  "  Essays  and  Ke views,"  entitled 
''Iaix  Mundiy  They  are  both  apologetical 
— the  one  for  a  minimized  individual  Chris- 
tianity, the  other  for  the  concrete  current 
of  historical  and  institutional  Christianity. 
They  are  both  alike,  too,  in  that  their 
authors  have  read,  marked,  learned  and 
inwardly  digested  the  theological  bugbear 

*''Lux  MundV  John  W.  Lovell  &  Co.,  New 
York.  "The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion," 
by  James  Martineau,  D.D.,  LL.D.  Longmans 
Green  &  Co.,  London  and  New  York. 


no  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

of  German  criticism.  They  are  both  also 
rationalistic,  aiming*  as  they  do  at  estab- 
lishing" the  rationality  of  the  faith  which 
they  contend  for,  however  great  the  vari- 
ance between  the  contents  of  the  faith  in 
the  two  cases.  But  as  regards  the  organ 
for  interpreting  Christianity,  both  ac- 
knowledge no  diviner  faculty  than  reason. 
They  differ,  too,  but  little  in  their  empha- 
sis of  both  faith  and  reason.  They  differ 
immensely,  however,  in  the  quantum  of 
"  The  Faith  "  found  to  be  rational,  and  in 
their  conception  of  the  rational. 

The  first  volume  is  a  painful  surprise,  on 
account  of  its  minimum  of  content ;  the 
other  is  a  pleasurable  surprise,  on  ac- 
count of  its  maximum  of  rationalism,  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  word.  The  broad  be- 
comes narrow  and  the  narrow  broad.  Dr. 
Martineau,  who,  on  his  recent  eight3^-fifth 
birthday,  received  an  ovation  from  the 
great  and  good  of  all  creeds  and  classes  in 
England,  because  of  his  noble  ''  endeavors 
after  the  Christian  life,"  here  narrows  the 


IN  RELIGION,  111 

external  concrete  manifestation  of  Christi- 
anity to  scarcely  more  than  a  half-hiddei; 
rivulet  in  noxious  glades  and  arid  deserts. 
The  Anglo-Catholic  movement,  on  the 
other  hand,  which  has  hitherto  stood  for 
appeal  to  uncriticised  authority  of  a  past, 
arbitrarily  labelled  holy ;  which  has  only 
spoken  of  reason  with  fear  and  hatred  ; 
which  has  narrowed  the  limits  of  the 
Church  more  than  any  Puritan ;  yes,  the 
Oxford  movement  of  Pusey  and  Newman 
here  appears  as  not  only  offering-  but  beg- 
ging* to  appeal  to  reason,  in  order  to  justi- 
fy itself  to  the  times  in  which  it  lives. 

The  Authors  of  the  '^  Lux  Mmidi.'' 

Eleven  devout  scholars  of  the  school  of 
Pusej^  "  with  unity  of  conviction,"  con- 
tribute the  twelve  essays  in  the  volume, 
desiring  "  it  to  be  the  expression  of  a  com- 
mon mind  and  a  common  hope."  They 
believe  'Hhat  theology  must  take  a  new 
development,"  that  *' the  faith  needs  dis- 
encumbering, reinterpreting,  explaining." 


112  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Their  twelve  ^* Tracts  for  the  Times" 
would  have  met  with  as  severe  condemna- 
tion at  the  hands  of  the  authors  of  the 
Oxford  movement,  could  they  have  been 
written  then,  as  did  the  Broad  Church 
'*  Essays  and  Reviews."  The  Rev.  Charles 
Gore,  editor,  and  one  of  the  contributors, 
is  the  Principal  of  Keble  College.  His 
essay  on  ^^Inspiration"  has  already  re- 
ceived a  like  welcome  from  some  of  the 
narrower  and  unprogressive  leaders  of  the 
party.  The  common  method  and  spirit  of 
all  the  essayists  are  seen  to  be  the  attempt 
to  reconcile  the  Church  and  modern 
thoug-ht,  including  modern  German  criti- 
cism of  the  origines  Christiance  ;  to  show 
that  Christ  is  the  true  I^iix  Mundi  of 
thought  and  science,  no  less  than  of  relig- 
ion. 

Reason  is  the  only  interpreter.  "  Rea- 
son interprets  religion  to  itself,  and  b3^ 
interpreting  verifies  and  confirms."  Re- 
ligion '^  dares  to  maintain  that  the  foun- 
tain of  wisdom  and  religion  alike  is  God  ; 


IN  RELIGION.  lib 

and  if  these  two  streams  shall  turn  aside 
from  him,  both  must  assuredly  run  dry. 
For  human  nature  craves  to  be  both  re- 
ligious and  rational.  And  the  life  which 
is  not  both  is  neither  "  (p.  90). 

The  Bible,  the  Church  and  individual 
reason  are  not  three  distinct  messages  or 
authorities.  They  must  be  so  interpreted 
as  to  be  seen  to  be  but  a  manifold  one — to 
be  but  parts  of  a  concrete  process.  Sepa- 
rated from  each  other,  abstracted  from  the 
process,  each  is  alike  false  and  misleading. 
Hence  it  is  not  each  single  man's  reason 
or  conscience  that  is  ultimate  ;  nor  is  it  the 
voice  of  the  Church  that  alone  proclaims 
the  truth.  It  is  the  reason  of  the  individ- 
ual, informed,  enlightened,  rationalized  by 
the  corporate  reason  of  mankind  recorded 
in  the  Bible  and  the  Church. 

It  is  this  which  distinguishes  their  vol 
ume  from  Dr.  Martineau's  work.    The  au- 
thors have  been  trained  and  educated  in  the 
more  concrete  form  of  institutional  Chris- 
tianity.    Dr.  Martineau  has,  to  a  great 


114  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

extent,  been  separated  from  this  life.  He 
has  been  an  eagie  in  the  air,  an  Alpine 
climber  on  the  top  of  the  Jung-  Frau. 
They  have  passed  their  lives  in  the  cool 
silence  and  holy  music  of  cathedral  choir, 
and  in  the  book-lined  walls  of  cloistered 
college,  and  yet  also  in  the  midst  of  the 
modern  Zeitgeist  that  has  invaded  and 
conquered  old  Oxford. 

Hoiv  Infliienced  by  German  Criticism 
and  Philosophy,  by  Prof.  T.  H. 
G7'ee7i,  and  the  Oxford  Hegelian- 
ism. — Their  Appeal  to  Reason. 

The  influence  of  German  philosophy  is 
even  more  marked  than  that  of  German 
criticism  in  their  essa^^s.  A  noticeable 
token  of  this  is  found  in  the  opening  essay 
on  "  Faith."  In  spirit  and  method  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  a  lay 
sermon  on  ''faith"  by  the  late  Thomas 
Hill  Green  (the  Professor  Grey  of  "  Robert 
Elsmere"),  leader  of  the  Hegelian  school 
at  Oxford.     The  same  is  true  of  the  essays 


IN  RELIGION.  115 

on  *'The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God," 
"  The  Incarnation  and  Development/'  and 
''  The  Incarnation  as  the  Basis  of  Dog-ma. " 
In  all  these,  it  is  true,  the  authors  go 
much  heyond  Green,  though  not  bej^ond 
Hegel,  in  starting  from  and  remaining-  in 
the  Divine  reason  done  into  the  historical 
institution  of  the  Church,  with  its  Word, 
Ministry  and  Sacraments. 

The  influence  of  Oxford  Hegelianism  in 
these  essays  is  very  marked.  The  late 
Thomas  Hill  Green  profoundly  influenced 
many  of  the  brightest  men  at  Oxford, 
leading-  them  to  a  study  of  Heg-el.  But 
very  many  thus  influenced  have  been  car- 
ried b}^  Hegel's  thought  and  their  own  en- 
vironment into  the  Anglo-Catholic  party. 
This  has  given  rise  to  a  current  saying  in 
England,  that  all  the  honey  from  Green's 
bees  goes  into  the  Anglo-Catholic  hive.* 

*  Since  writing  this  chapter  I  liave  looked  over 
again  the  curious  book  of  S.  Baring-Gould  on 
"The  Origin  and  Development  of  Religious  Be- 
lief," which  was  startling  when  first  read  some 
twenty  years  ago.     I  find  it  now,  as  then,  a  queer 


116  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

But  this  honey  has  had  the  vital  power  to 
transform  the  hive.  It  is  another  case  of 
the  conquered  giving-  laws  to  the  conquer- 
ors. 

hodge-podge  of  materialism  and  philosophy.  The 
noteworthy  thing  about  it,  coming  from  an  An- 
glo-Catholic,  is  its  appeal  to  philosophy  for  vindi- 
cation of  the  Christian  religion,  and  especially 
its  rapturous  acceptance  of  Hegel's  philosophy. 
Thus  he  says, "  The  importance  of  Hegel's  method 
I  think  it  impossible  to  overestimate.  ...  I 
believe  that  if  the  modern  intellect  is  to  be  recon- 
ciled to  the  dogma  of  the  Incarnation,  it  will  be 
through  Hegel's  discovery."  .  .  .  ''He  supplies 
a  key  to  unlock  the  gate  which  has  remained 
closed  to  the  minds  of  modern  Europe.  ...  I 
do  not  pretend  to  have  done  more  than  apply  the 
Hegelian  method  to  the  rudiments  of  Christianity, 
to  establish  the  rationale  of  its  fundamental  doc- 
trine, the  Incarnation."  (Vol.  II.,  pp.  39,  40,  116 
and  375.) 

However  ill-digested  the  materials  which  he 
worked  up,  and  however  imperfect  his  apprehen- 
sion of  Hegel's  method,  he  at  least  did  pioneer 
work  in  calling  attention  to  Hegel  as  a  master  in 
philosophy.  I  doubt  not  that  his  work  has  been 
one  of  the  influences  making  '*  Lux  MundV  pos- 
sible in  that  quarter.  It  need  scarcely  be  said 
that  their  work  is  more  scholarly  and  devout. 
Their  style  is  rather  German-like,  while  his  is 
quite  French-like. 


IJS  RELIGION,  117 

The  Divine  Lnmanence. 

The   doctrine   of  Divine  immanence  is 
maintained  as  the  Log-os  of  the  world  both 
before  and  after  the  incarnation.     Greek 
and  Roman  culture  is   received   as   ^'  no 
alien  element,  but  a  leg-itimate  ingredient  in 
Catholic,  complete  Christianity"  (p.  168). 
''  The  history  of  pre-Christian  religions  is 
like  that  of   pre-Christian   philosophy,   a 
long  preparation  for  the  Gospel"  (p.  171). 
The  history  of  Christianity,  too,  is  a  long- 
historical  process  of  spiritual  and  mental 
assimilation  and  interpretation  of  the  in- 
carnation.    Christianity,   both  as    to   its 
records  and  its  creeds,  has  a  history  and 
is  "  subject  to  all  the  conditions  of  history 
and    the  laws   of  evidence."     Historical 
criticism  is  welcomed  as  a  true  handmaid, 
a   part   of  Lux   Mundi.      But  historical 
conditions  cannot  invalidate  the  process 
they    make    possible.       The    word,    the 
ministry  and  sacraments  of  the  Church, 
though    subject  to   all   these   conditions 


118  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

represents  the  real  static  elements  in  tlie 
process.  Thej^  are  the  highest  and  truest 
expressions  and  interpretations  of  the  Lux 
Mundi. 

Neither  histor^^,  nor  religion  actualized 
in  histor^^,  is  an  unfolding'  of  abstract 
thought.  Feeling,  fancy,  desire  and  will 
are  also  elements  of  the  concrete  life,  and 
the  Imx  Mundi  recognizes,  uses,  is  imma- 
nent in  them.  Parable  and  myth  and  leg- 
end, proverb,  drama  and  poetry,  no  less 
than  prose,  are  vehicles  of  his  presence  and 
power  and  beneficence.  Christianity  is  not 
merely  philosoph^^  or  theology  or  cult  or 
creed  or  institution,  but  it  is  all  of  these, 
together  with  all  thrills  of  feeling  and 
visions  of  fancy  and  deeds  of  will  that 
are  inwoven  elements  of  Christian  history. 
Criticism  may  be  welcomed  to  the  task  of 
distinguishing  these  various  elements,  but 
it  must  be  dismissed  the  moment  that  it  sets 
up  any  one  or  all  of  its  dissected  abstracted 
elements  as  the  whole  truth.  The  life  and 
light,  the  Logos  and  the  Lux  of  the  world 


IN  RELIGION.  119 

are  in  the  whole.  This  spirit  and  method 
of  studying-  and  appreciating-  Christian 
history  and  institutions  is  notably  that  of 
Hegel.  Indeed  his  impatience  with  the 
abstract  critical  study  of  religion  is  far 
greater  than  that  of  the  authors  of  Lux 
Mundi. 

The  Historical  Method. 

Throughout  Christian  history,  in  which 
Church  and  creed  and  ritual  and  culture 
and  life  have  been  developed,  *Hhe  entire 
human  nature— imagination,  reason,  feel- 
ing, desire — becomes  to  faith  a  vehicle  of 
intercourse,  a  mediating  aid  in  its  friend- 
ship with  God"  (p.  24).  Welcome  all  that 
historical  criticism  may  do  to  discriminate 
these^elements,  but  hold  fast  to  all.  ''  Faith 
appeals  to  such  a  complex  history  to  justify 
its  career  ;  it  bears  about  that  history  with 
it  as  its  explanation  ivhy  or  how  it  has 
arrived  at  its  present  condition"  (p.  33). 
But  mere  ''spiritualized  Christianity"  is 
abstract  and  evanescent.     "  The  religion 


120  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

which  attempts  to  be  rid  of  the  bodily  side 
of  thing's  spiritual,  sooner  or  later  loses  its 
hold  of  all  reality.  The  Church  of  Christ 
is  not  so.  It  does  not  ig-nore  the  funda- 
mental conditions  of  human  experience. 
The  incarnation  was  the  sanctifying-  of 
both  parts  of  human  nature,  not  the 
abolition  of  either.  The  Church,  the 
sacraments,  human  nature,  Jesus  Christ 
himself,  all  are  twofold ;  all  are  earthly 
objective  as  well  as  transcendental  spirit- 
ual" (p.  226).  Hence  the  frank  and  un- 
wavering- maintenance  of  the  creeds,  ritual 
and  ministry  of  institutional  Christianit3^ 
They  are  ,bone  and  flesh  and  feeling-  and 
reason  of  these  essayists  ;  hence  rational, 
in  the  hig-hest  and  most  concrete  sense  of 
the  word.  '^  There  is  one  sense  in  ivhich 
we  may  own  that  even  the  definitions  of 
the  creeds  may  themselves  be  called  rela- 
tive and  temporary.  For  we  must  not 
claim  for  phrases  of  earthly  coinage  a  more 
than  earthly  and  relative  completeness" 
(p.  212).    And  yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which 


IN  RELIGION.  121 

they  are  final  and  authoritative,  being* 
*^  simply  careful  rehearsals  of  those  inhe- 
rent necessities  which  inevitably  are  in- 
volved in  the  rational  construction  of 
Christ's  living*  character"  (p.  41). 

In  the  same  wa^^  the  Sacramental  system 
is  rightfully  maintained  as  a  vital  part  of 
Christianit3^  Its  rationality  and  necessity 
are  justly  vindicated  by  far  different 
methods  from  those  which  have  hitherto 
been  in  vogue  with  the  Anglo-Catholic 
party. 

In  short,  no  part  of  Catholic  Christian- 
ity is  given  up,  and  yet  no  part  is  main- 
tained b3^  the  former  arbitrary  method  of 
mere  assertion.  The  re-setting,  the  justi- / 
fying  the  parts  by  their  history  and  their 
helpfulness  and  rationalit}^,  puts  an  en- 
tirely new  phase  upon  the  w^hole. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  the  modern 
thought  and  methods  which  characterize 
this  volume.  The  only  novelty  is  in  finding 
them  in  the  representatives  of  that  party 
which  has  from  the  first  most  vig'orously 


132  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

protested  against  modern  thought  in  favor 
of  what  the  early  Fathers  thought  and  said 
under  Divine  inspiration.  The  Bible  "  con- 
tains "  the  word  of  God,  but  is  subject  to 
all  the  conditions  of  history  and  laws  of 
evidence  (p.  35).  ^^  The  modern  develop- 
ment of  historical  criticism  is  reaching 
results  as  sure,  where  it  is  fairly  used,  as 
scientific  inquiry  "  (p.  298).  Even  Christ, 
in  his  teaching,  *^  used  human  nature,  its 
relation  to  God,  its  conditions  of  experi- 
ence, its  growth  in  knowledge,  its  limita- 
tions of  knowledge."  Even  the  cry 
^^  remember  Tuebingen"  cannot  frighten 
Mr.  Gore  from  pleading  for  a  free  discus- 
sion of  all  these  questions  of  Biblical 
criticism  (301).  All  new  truth  of  modern 
thought  and  science  is  welcomed  as  addi- 
tional rays  of  the  Light  of  the  world,  help- 
ing to  interpret  and  to  understand  the 
Bible  (p.  448). 

Religion  is  to  be  interpreted  and  justified 
by  reason  manifested  in  a  historical  process 
of  development.     Morality  is  often  far  in 


IN  RELIGION.  123 

advance  of  religion.  The  Reformation  was 
a  moral  protest,  a  genuine  moral  revolt 
against  a  religion  which  had  come  to  toler- 
ate immoralit^^  "  True  religion  is  rational ; 
if  it  excludes  reason  it  is  self -condemned  " 
(p.  G8).  "  To  sa}^  that  a  man  need  not  inter- 
pret his  religion  to  his  reason,  is  like  saying 
Be  religious  ;  but  you  need  not  let  j^our  re- 
ligion influence  your  conduct"  (p.  74).  Dar- 
win and  Huxley  and  Fiske  present  a  wider 
teleology  than  Pale}^  (77).  Of  a  previous 
book  of  Dr.  Martineau  on  religion  it  is  said 
that  *^  No  more  earnest  and  vigorous,  and, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  no  truer  defence  of  relig- 
ion has  been  published  in  our  da3^"  Ph3^s- 
ical  science  and  philosoph^^  have  destro3^ed 
the  deistic  conception  so  regnant  in  Chris- 
tian thought.  ''  The  one  absolutely  im- 
possible conception  of  God,  in  the  present 
dsiy,  is  that  which  represents  him  as  an 
occasional  Visitor  ' '  (82) .  "  The  conviction 
that  the  Divine  immanence  must  be  for  our 
age,  as  for  the  Athanasian  age,  the  meet- 
ing point  of  the  religious  and  philosophic 


124  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

view  of  God,  is  showing-  itself  in  the  most 
thoughtful  minds  on  both  sides  "  (p.  83). 

It  is  admitted  ^^  to  be  the  province  of 
reason  to  judge  of  the  morality  of  the 
Scriptures  "  (p.  89).  They  are  not  fright- 
ened b}^  what  some  ignorantl}^  stigmatize 
as  pantheism.  Three  t^^pical  theologians 
of  three  different  ages  are  quoted,  ^*  using* 
as  the  language  of  sober  theology  words 
every  whit  as  strong  as  any  of  the  famous 
pantheistic  passages  in  our  modern  liter- 
ature "  (60).  It  is  frankly  recognized  that 
the  orthodox  thought  has  been  cleared  and 
served  in  no  small  part  b}^  *  liberalizers." 
Such  liberalizers  are  recognized  as  ^^  help- 
ing to  qualify  the  materialism  or  supersti- 
tion of  ignorant  sacramentalists,  or  to 
banish,  dogmatic  realisms  about  hell  or 
explications  of  the  atonement  which  malign 
God's  Fatherhood"  (p.  211).  Such  con- 
cessions  to  anti-dogmatists,  as  well  as  that 
of  the  merely  relative  finalitj^  of  the  creeds, 
are  gladl^^  granted  ^'in  the  name  of 
truth." 


IN  RELIGION,  135 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  the  author  of  all  life. 
"  The  Spirit  claims  for  his  own  and  co7i- 
secrates  the  whole  of  nature.  All  that 
exists  is  in  its  essence  very  good'^  (273). 
The  gradualness  of  the  Spirit's  method 
explains  the  most ''  unspiritual  appearance 
of  the  Old  Testament ;"  explains  how,  e.g., 
Phineas'  murder  was  reckoned  to  him  for 
righteousness,  and  how  Abraham  obtained 
an  even  higher  honor  for  being  not  a  mur- 
derer onl}' ,  but  what  was  much  worse,  a 
child  murderer  "  (pp.  274,  276).  The  same 
explains  the  imperfections,  moral  and  in- 
tellectual, of  the  Christian  Church,  which 
has  never  been  more  than  ''  a  tendency, 
not  a  result ;  a  life  in  process,  not  a  ripened 
fruit"  (276).  As  to  the  Trinity,  it  is 
said  that  ^^it  was  onl^^  with  an  expressed 
apology  for  the  imperfection  of  human 
language  that  the  Church  spoke  of  the 
Divine  Three  2iS, persons  at  all"  (280). 

The  doctrine  of  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures  is  not  conceded  a  place  with 
bases  of    the    Christian    belief,      Assent 


126  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

is  asked  in  the  Creed  to  certain  histori- 
cal facts  ^^  on  grounds  which,  so  far,  are 
quite  independent  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  Evang'eUc  records.  All  that  we 
claim  to  show  at  this  stage  is  that  they 
are  historical;  not  historical  so  as  to  be 
absolutely  without  error,  but  historical  in 
the  general  sense,  so  as  to  be  trustworthy  '^ 
(284).  Inspiration  varies  in  degree,  not 
in  kind,  in  the  teachers  and  writers  of 
all  religions  and  philosophies,  and  does  not 
guarantee  the  exact  historical  truth  of  tlie 
records,  as  it  is  quite  as  consistent  with 
mythallegory  and  poetry  as  with  plain 
prose.  Our  Lord's  use  of  Jonah's  resur- 
rection as  a  type  of  his  own  does  not  de- 
pend in  any  real  degree  upon  whether  that 
was  a  historical  fact  or  allegory.  Dr. 
Pusey  to  the  contrary  notAvithstanding. 
Neither  does  his  use  of  Psalm  CX.  guar- 
antee its  Davidic  authorship  (p.  300). 

The  visible  method  of  the  working  of 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  in  the  world  is  made 
the  historical  and  rational  basis  of  the 


IN  RELIGION.  127 

organization  of  the  Catholic  Church,  with 
its  Apostohc  ministry.  The  rational 
g-round  for  the  succession  of  such  a  minis- 
try is  said  to  be  ' '  the  necessity  for  pre- 
serving- in  a  catholic  society,  which  lacks 
the  natural  links  of  race  or  language  or 
common  habitation,  a  visible  and  obliga- 
tory bond  of  association."  The  imtionale 
and  extent  of  authority  in  the  Church  is  the 
same  as  that  given  by  Plato  and  Hegel. 
It  is  irrational  when  used  for  suppressing 
individuality^  instead  of  nourishing  it,  for 
the  reaction  of  the  individual  on  societ^^ 
is  needed  to  keep  the  common  tradition 
pure  and  unnarrowed  (272).  The  num- 
ber of  granted  ^^  open  questions,"  theolog- 
ical, ecclesiastical  and  liturgical,  far  ex- 
ceeds that  hitherto  allowed  by  the  previous 
representatives  of  this  party  of  finality. 

Open  Questions  Granted. 

We  have  barely  quoted  some  of  the 
'*open  questions"  and  *  ^concessions"  grant- 
ed by  the  writers  of  this  volume.  They  will 


128  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

amply  suffice,  however,  to  show  ^'  the  new 
front,"  the  new  spirit  and  the  new  method 
under  which  these  new  leaders  present 
"  The  Faith  "  for  the  rational  acceptance 
of  Christians  of  every  name.  The  hook, 
we  would  giadly  believe,  heralds  a  theo- 
logical renaissance  of  genuine  catholic 
import  and  extent. 

The  appeal  is  to  reason,  and  awakens  the 
affirmative  response  of  reason.  Such 
Catholics,  Anglo  or  Americano,  ^ve  would 
all  gladly  be.  Such  Catholicism  we  wel- 
come as  the  need  of  the  world  and  the 
Church  to-day.  It  is  the  Catholicism  of 
the  nineteenth  centur}^  after  Christ — the 
Lmx  Mundi  of  our  own  da3^ 

Such  Catholicism  is  needed  (1)  not  only 
to  unify  and  inspire  the  diverse  elements 
in  our  own  Church,  but  it  is  also  needed 
(2)  to  preserve,  maintain  and  impart  the 
heritage  of  Christian  doctrine  and  wor- 
ship that  to-daj"  has  a  diminishing  hold 
upon  the  Christian  world.  It  is  needed  to 
save  from  mere  negative   critical  results. 


IN  RELIGION.  129 

and  from  the  baldest  Quakerism,  both  of 
which  are  the  conspicuous  features  of  the 
other  great  volume— that  hy  Dr.  Martin- 
eau.  A  presentation  of  his  results  will  af- 
ford us  the  best  occasion  for  further  refer- 
ence to  Lux  Mundi  as  the  genial  anti- 
dote to  the  depressing,  almost  killing, 
negations  of  his  book. 

Dr.  Martinecm's  Previous  Works — Their 
Character  and  Style. 

Dr.  Martineau — alarum  et  veuerabile 
nomen — has  made  a  whole  generation  of 
devout  and  intellectual  men  his  debtors. 
His  volume  on  "  Endeavors  after  the 
Christian  Life  "  has  been  a  genuine  aid 
to  faith  and  to  personal  piety.  His  vol- 
umes of  ^'  Essays,  Philosophical  and 
Theological,^^  have  helped  many  out  of 
the  mire  of  empiricism  and  utihtarian- 
ism,  and  out  of  the  murky  Umbo  of  ag- 
nosticism. His  ^^  Hours  of  Thought  on 
Sacred  Thing s,^^  though  more  analytical, 
subtile  and  subjective,  still  helped  to  wing 


130  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

the  flig-ht  of  the  soul  upwards  ^^  from  the 
alone  to  The  Alone."  His  more  recent 
volumes  on  "  Ethics  ^^  and  "Religion^' 
have  been  x)ositive  and  constructive. 
Throughout  he  appears  as  an  armed 
Christian  knight,  full  of  the  vigor  and  jo}^ 
of  battle.  He  is  a  born  warrior,  but 
trained  to  figiit  single-handed,  rather  than 
as  general  in  a  large  organized  army. 
The  Primacy  of  the  English  Church  might 
easily  have  been  his,  if  he  had  been  a  loyal 
member  of  it.  He  justly  merited  the 
marked  ovation  of  respect  recently  paid 
him. 

The  marring  elements  of  his  intellectual 
work  have  been  those  w  hich  have  helped  to 
make  it  efficient — that  is,  his  keen  polem- 
ics and  his  brilliant  rhetoric.  A  disturbing 
satiet^^  of  style  is  found  in  his  last  volume. 

We  wish  that  we  had  no  other  criticism 
to  offer.  It  is  painful  to  criticise  one 
whom  we  have  learned  to  esteem  and  love 
as  a  conservative  helper  in  philosophy, 
ethics   and  religion.     His  radical  critical 


IN  RELIGION.  131 

attitude  towards  creed  and  church  in  this 
volume  are  unexpected  and  painful.  But 
we  are  spared  this  pain  throug-hout  Book 
L,  in  which  he  traces,  with  ^lad  mind  and 
heart,  the  evidences  of  God  in  nature,  in 
humanit^^,  in  conscience  and  in  histor^^ 
Here  he  is  positive  and  conservative,  using- 
his  keenest  weapons  against  materialism 
and  utilitarianism.  Here  he  commands 
assent  and  gratitude.  Doubt  is  banished 
and  faith  is  regnant.  This  part  was  writ- 
ten some  eig-hteen  3^ears  ag-o,  for  the  ex- 
tinct American  magazine  "  The  Old  and 
New."  He  had  then  collected  materials 
for  ''a  compendious  survey  of  the  ground 
of  both  Natural  and  Historical  religion  as 
accepted  in  Christendom."  Released  from 
preoccupation  with  philosophy  two  years 
ago,  he  found  that  his  materials  for  the 
historical  part— especially  for  the  first  two 
centuries  of  Christianity— had  become  un- 
trustworthy. He  set  at  work  to  overtake 
the  advance  made  in  historical  research 
and  criticism.     The  admirably  lucid  and 


132  EEASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

full  work  of  the  German  scholars  made 
this  a  comparatively  eas}^  task.  To  this 
fresh  study  is  due  by  far  the  larger  part 
of  the  volume,  which  is  so  radically  de- 
structive of  ^^  The  Faith." 

It  is  scarcely  just  to  pass  over  the  first 
part  of  Dr.  Martineau's  volume  without 
g-enerous  praise  and  extended  quotation. 
It  is  a  continuously^  profound,  subtle  and 
convincing  argument  for  the  existence  and 
presence  of  God,  as  opposed  to  all  materi- 
alistic and  agnostic  theories.  The  three 
grand  discoveries  of  modern  science,  (1) 
the  immense  extension  of  the  universe  in 
space  and  (2)  in  time,  and  (3)  the  correla- 
tion and  conservation  of  forces,  may  seem 
to  banish  God  from  nature.  ^^  But,''  asks 
Dr.  Martineau,  "is  it  not  childish,  then, 
to  be  terrified  out  of  our  religion  b}^  the 
mere  scale  of  things,  and  because  the  little 
Mosaic  firmament  is  broken  in  pieces,  to 
ask  wiiether  its  Divine  Ruler  is  not  also 
gone?"  (p.  8).  Again,  ^^ though  natural 
forces  have  lost  their  birthday  .  . .  they  are 


IN  RELIGION.  133 

no  more  entitled,  by  mere  longevity,  to 
serve  an  ejectment  on  the  Divine  element 
than  the  Divine  element  is  to  claim  every- 
thing- from  them"  (p.  19).  The  third 
conception  of  forces  also  leads  to  the  theis- 
tic  conception  of  the  one  supreme  Will. 
All  three  of  these  modern  scientific  con- 
ceptions only  serve  "  to  elevate  and  glorify 
^the  religious  interpretation  of  nature.'^ 
And  3^et  nature  is  ''  not  God's  character- 
istic sphere  of  self-expression.  Rather 
it  is  his  eternal  act  of  self -limitation . . . 
the  stooping  of  the  Infinite  Will  to  an 
everlasting  self-sacrifice . ' ' 

It  is  in  humanity  and  humanity's  history 
that  his  mind  and  heart  are  more  clearly 
revealed.  Conscience  is  the  voice  of  God 
in  the  soul  of  man,  divinely  admonishing, 
inspiring,  guiding  humanity.  In  Christi- 
anity this  voice  of  law  is  transformed  into 
the  voice  of  love.  '^The  veil  falls  from 
the  shadowed  face  of  moral  authority,  and 
the  directing  love  of  the  all-holy  God 
shines  forth"  (p.  75).    Histor}^  shows  us 


134  RE  AS  ON  AND  A  UTHORIT  Y 

the  stag-es  of  this  drama  of  humanity  and 
Divine  Love.  '^  Humanity  is  not  onl}^  a 
many-JAvm^  org-an  ;  it  is  also  a  luO'^G- lived 
organ  of  God." 

His  Bald  Individualism. 

But  we  must  turn  from  the  part  that 
will  win  praise  and  thanks  from  all  good 
Christians  to  that  larger  part  which  will 
startle,  pain,  shame  and  anger  nearly  all 
who  profess  and  call  themselves  Chris- 
tians. For  he  puts  forth  as  '^  approved  " 
the  whole  mass  of  the  most  radical  modern 
destructive  criticism  of  Church,  Bible  and 
Theology.  He  himself  thus  estimates  the 
results  of  his  own  work  :  "  As  I  look  back 
on  the  foregoing  discussions,  a  conclusion 
is  forced  upon  me  on  which  I  cannot  dwell 
without  pain  and  dismay,  viz.,  that 

"  Christianity  as  defined  or  understood 
in  the  churches  which  formulate  it,  has 
been  mainly  evolved  from  what  is  transient 
and  perishable  in  its  sources  ;  from  what 
is   unhistorical   in  its  traditions,  mytho- 


IN  RELIGION.  135 

log'ical  ill  its  preconceptions,  and  misap- 
prehended in  tiie  oracles  of  its  prophets. 
From  Eden  to  the  sounding-  of  the  last 
trumpet,  the  whole  story  of  the  divine 
order  of  the  world  is  dislocated  and  de- 
formed. 

"  To  consecrate  and  diffuse,  under  the 
name  of  ^  Christianity,^  a  theory  of  the 
world's  economy  thus  made  up  of  illusions 
from  obsolete  stages  of  civilization,  im- 
mense resources,  material  and  moral,  are 
expended,  with  effects  no  less  deplorable  in 
the  province  of  religion  than  would  be,  in 
that  of  science,  hierarchies  and  missions  for 
propagating"  the  Ptolemaic  astronomy 
and  inculcating  the  rules  of  necromancy 
and  exorcism."     (p.  650.) 

We  need  give  but  a  brief  resume  of  the 
discussion  leading  to  this  almost  atheis- 
tic conception  of  Christian  history,  before 
passing  to  a  criticism  of  his  whole  concep- 
tion and  method. 

In  Book  II.  he  treats  of  ''  Authority 
Artificially  Misplaced.' '    His    two  an- 


136  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

tagonists  are  the  Catholics  and  the 
Protestants,  who  "are  possessed  with 
the  idea  that  the}^  have  actually  got  di- 
vine truth  enclosed  within  a  ring  fence, 
still  pure  and  integral  after  all  these 
ages."  They  agree  in  having  an  external 
authority  ;  they  differ  in  attributing  it, 
the  one  to  a  corporation,  the  other  to  a 
literature.  As  between  Lambeth,  Gene- 
va and  Rome,  he  decides  that  Rome  has 
clearly  the  best  right  to  the  stupendous 
claim  of  being  the  Church,  or  the  corpo- 
rate keeper  of  the  truth.  Hence  his  first 
chapter  is  on  '^  The  Catholics  and  the 
Church  J  ^  No  Protestant  could  wish  for 
a  more  drastic  criticism  of  its  preferred 
"  notes  "  of  the  true  Church,  i.e..  Unity, 
Sanctity,  Universality  and  Apostolicity. 
The  Councils  of  Ephesus  and  Constance ; 
Borgia,  Tetzel  and  Torquemada  —  the 
whole  host  of  blots  on  Christian  history 
are  so  emblazoned  over  its  pages  as  to 
render  the  text  illegible.  It  presents  the 
errors  and  superstitions  and  weaknesses 


IN  RELIGION.  137 

of  the  Church,  without  the  slig-htest  ap- 
preciation of  its  organization,  character 
and  beneficence.  With  one  fell,  though 
long-continued  and  massive  criticism,  he 
destroys  the  Church  of  Rome,  Lambeth 
and  Geneva.  He  really  polemicizes  the 
Church  under  an^^  and  every  form,  and 
awakens  s^^mpathy  rather  than  antipathy 
for  the  "mother  dear "  even  in  Roman 
form. 

In  the  second  chapter  he  deals  like 
wholesale  negative  criticisms  to  "  the 
Protestants  and  the  Scriptures.''  No 
Romanist  would  applaud  his  professed 
achievement  of  destroying  the  word  of 
God  contaioed  in  the  Bible.  To  six  of  the 
epistles  of  St.  Paul  he  allows  merel}^  possi- 
ble genuineness.  The  synoptical  Gospels 
wholly  lack  both  genuineness  and  au- 
thenticity, being  a  mass  of  unhistorical 
accretions,  false  chronology,  irreconcil- 
able contradictions  and  fabulous  concep- 
tions. The  Fourth  Gospel  was  writ- 
ten in  the  middle  of  the  second  century 


138  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

by  a  Platouized  Christian,  who  sought  to 
prove  that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God 
by  transfig'aring-  received  traditions  into 
philosophical  realism. 

We  may  spare  the  reader  Sbuy  detailed 
account  of  his  criticism  of  the  Gospels 
by  quoting-  a  passage  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  volume.  This  is  from  Book  V., 
which  professes  to  be  reconstructive. 
The  first  chapter  is  on  "  The  Veil  Taken 
Aivay.''  This  is  evidently'  the  heart  of 
the  book,  the  ke^^-chapter  of  the  whole 
volume.  To  read  it  is  to  know  the  whole 
work.  Ex  lino  disce  omnes.  But  we 
give  the  quotation  first,  though  it  occurs 
at  the  beginning  of  the  next  chapter  : 

^'  The  portions  of  the  synoptic  texts 
which  remain  on  hand,  after  severing 
what  the  foregoing  rules  exclude,  can  b3^ 
no  means  be  accepted  en  masse  as  all 
equall^^  trustworth3\  They  are  relieved 
simply  of  the  impossible,  and  contain  onl^^ 
what  might  be  time  "  (p.  602).  The  italics 
are  Dr.  Martineau's. 


IN  RELIGION.  139 

In  this  Book  V.  Dr.  Martineau  reveals 
most  clear!}'  the  Puritan,  or  rather  the  Qua- 
ker conception  of  Christianity  that  domi- 
nates his  whole  work.  He  constructs  the 
historical  Christ  from  his  own  subjective 
Christ.  The  Biblical,  the  ecclesiastical  and 
the  theological  Christs  are  perversions  of 
the  "  Lig'ht  of  the  world  "  that  has  immedi- 
ate!}'shone  into  his  mind.  The  nimbus  and 
the  corona  are  due  to  tlie  refracting-  media 
tliroug-h  wliicli  the  orb  lias  shone.  It  is  im- 
possible for  any  ti^ue  liistorica!  portrait  to 
be  produced.  Christian  theology  and  tradi- 
tion and  w^orsliip  have  only  served  to  ren- 
der the  prophecy  true  to-day  that  his  vis- 
age ''was  so  marred  more  than  an}^ 
man's."  Their  cry,  ''Behold  the  God," 
renders  it  forever  impossible  for  us  to  "  be- 
hold the  man."  Yet  even  this  perversion 
gives  him  a  rule  for  separating  the  true 
from  the  false  in  the  portrait  of  Jesus. 

But  what  a  Persian  sword  this  rule 
seems  to  be  !  What  a  coup  cle  grace,  be- 
heading more  keenly  and  surely  than  any 


140  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

g-uillotiiie  !  The  rule  is  simply  that  of  ex- 
cluding- ''  all  that  men  have  thought  Sihout 
his  person,  functions  and  office,"  and  re- 
taining- "  what  Jesus  himself  was,  in 
spiritual  character  and  moral  relation  to 
God."  Dr.  Martineau  g-oes  on  (p.  575)  to 
assert  that  the  Apostles  and  all  Christian 
teachers  in  every  Church,  from  the  most 
hierarchical  to  the  most  reformed,  have 
put  forth  their  own  thoug-hts  about  Jesus, 
instead  of  delivering  to  men  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ.  [The  italics  throughout 
are  Dr.  Martineau's.]  "  We  must  not  mis- 
take all  this  scholastic  dust  for  the  divine 
radiance  that  shoots  through  it,  and  lends 
it  aglor^^  not  its  own."  But,  alas  !  he  con- 
fesses'^  the  real  figure  cannot,  unfortu- 
nately, be  seen  by  us  except  through  the 
medium  of  human  theories  and  preposses- 
sions." Where  then  is  he  to  find  the  real 
Jesus,  when  all  these  false  accretions  have 
been  set  aside  ? 

He  confesses  that  ^Mt  is  perhaps  a  blind 
infatuation  that  impels  us  to  seek,  and  a 


IN  BE  LI  Gl  ON.  141 

blind  incompetence  that  forbids  us  to  find 
such  a  portrait  un tinctured  by  some  con- 
ceptions of  our  own."  ^'  It  is  in  the  sub- 
jective tincture  of  our  spirits,  not  in  the 
objective  constructions  of  our  intellect, 
that  his  consecration  enters  and  holds  us." 
Hence,  "  to  draw  forth  the  objective  truth 
from  behind  this  mist  of  prepossessions,  Ave 
are  thrown  entn^ely  upon  internal  evi- 
dence." Three  rules  may  aid  us  in  this 
hopeless  task.  I  abbreviate,  without  mar- 
ring-, these  rules. 

1st.  Reject  all  possible  anachronisms, 
as  where  the  narratoi's  make  past  history 
out  of  present  facts  and  fancies. 

2d.  Reject  miracles  that  can  be  ac- 
counted for  b3^  natural  causes,  and  the 
subjective  conceptions  of  the  narrator. 

3d.  Retain  all  acts  and  words  ascribed 
to  Jesus  which  i^lainl}^  transcend  the  moral 
level  of  the  narrators,  and  reject  all  such 
as  are  out  of  character  with  his  spirit, 
but  cong"ruous  with  theirs. 

*^  The  first  of  these  rules  compels  us  to 


143  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

treat  as  unauthentic,  in  its  present  form, 
every  reputed  or  implied  claim  of  Jesus  to 
be  the  promised  Messiah."  ^'  His  investi- 
ture with  that  character  was  the  retro- 
spective work  of  his  disciples  "  (p.  577). 
In  his  last  days  '^  his  depression  of  spirit 
was  due  to  his  anticipation  of  rejection  and 
martyrdom ;  not,  however,  as  Messiah, 
hut  SiS  Messiah' sher^ald  .  .  .  he  was  sim- 
ply the  continuator  of  the  Baptist's  mes- 
sag-e  "  (p.  625). 

So,  too,  the  extension  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
Gentiles  was  not  embraced  within  the 
message  of  its  founder  (p.  585).  Here,  too, 
history  is  imagined  back  into  prophecy  by 
the  apostles. 

Dr.  Martineau  finds  the  application  of 
his  third  rule  "  a  much  more  difficult  and 
delicate  task  for  the  critic."  Here  his 
own  subjective  preferences  afford  the  only 
means  of  discriminating  between  the  true 
and  the  false  in  the  gospel  portrait.  Thus 
he  finds  "  the  self -proclamation  of  meek- 
ness and  lowliness  of  heart,  and  the  pomp- 


IN  RELIGION.  143 

ous  elevation  above  Jonah  and  Solomon 
and  the  temple,  are  out  of  keeping*  with 
his  personalit3\"  So,  too,  is  '^the  irrita- 
tion attributed  to  him  by  St.  Luke  against 
the  obduracy  of  his  own  people,"  and 
also  the  unbecoming*  dinner-table  invective 
against  Pharisaic  Iwpocrisy  and  ambition 
(596-599).  There  is  finally  left  only  ''  a  few 
ineffaceable  lineaments  which  could  only 
belong  to  a  figure  unique  in  grace  and 
majesty"  (601). 

The  great  part  of  the  true  stor}^  of  Jesus 
has  been  hopelessly  ruined  in  the  trans- 
mission. Only  ^^  here  and  there  a  precious 
shred  of  it  turns  up  at  last  under  the  eye 
of  a  far-off  observer,  who  brings  it  un- 
spoiled to  light."  Such  shreds  our  author, 
the  "far-off  observer,"  tries  to  "bring 
unspoiled  to  the  light "  in  his  last  chapter 
on  "  The  Christian  Religion  Personally 
Realized."  Here  he  says  much  that  is 
fine  and  deep  and  spiritual  as  to  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus.  The  few  lingering  shreds 
of  true  history  afford  him  thoughts  almost 


144  RE  AS  ON  AND  A  UTHORITY 

too  deep  for  utterance.  Yet  he  has  pre- 
viously^ excluded  '^  all  that  men  have 
thought  about  Jesus "  as  unhistorical, 
and  confessed  the  limitations  of  subjective 
conceptions.  No  wonder,  then,  that  he 
adds,  ^'  As  I  look  back  on  the  foregoing 
discussions,  a  conclusion  is  foj-ced  upon  me 
on  Avhich  I  cannot  dwell  without  pain  and 
disma3^"  How  much  more  will  his 
results  bring  pain  and  dismay  to  other 
Christians  who  thus  find  their  Lord 
taken  away,  unless,  like  the  first  disciples, 
they  find  him  not  in  the  tomb,  but  appear- 
ing to  them  in  the  resurrection  form  and 
130 wer  of  his  holy  Catholic  Church  ? 

Dr.  Martineau,  it  should  be  said,  does 
not  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
from  the  tomb.  "  The  absolute  conviction 
of  this  on  the  part  of  his  followers  is  among 
the  most  certain  of  historical  facts.  But 
it  belongs  to  their-  history  and  not  to  Ms, 
which  has  its  continuance  in  quite  another 
sphere"  (p.  649). 

What  is  left?     ''I  am  brought  to  a  fur- 


IN  RELIGION.  145 

tiler* conclusion,  in  which  I  must  rest  in 
peace  and  hope,  viz.,  that  Christianity, 
understood  as  the  personal  relio'ion  of 
Jesus  Christ,  stands  clear  of  all  the  perish- 
able elements,  and  realizes  the  true  relation 
between  man  and  God."  But  even  Jesus' 
own  personal  religion  does  not  impl}^  that 
he  was  absolutely  ''without  sin."  As 
Mediator,  Uplifter,  Inspirer,  "he  needs 
only  to  be  better  than  we  are."  And  he  is 
Mediator,  "  not  instead  of  immediate 
revelation,  but  simply  as  making  us  more 
aAvare  of  it,  and  helping  us  to  interpret  it. 
For  in  the  yqvj  constitution  of  the  human 
soul  there  is  provision  for  an  immediate 
apprehension  of  God.  .  .  And  if  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  in  virtue  of  the  character  of  his 
spirit,  holds  the  place  of  Prince  of  Saints, 
and  perfects  the  conditions  of  the  pure 
religious  life,  he  therebj^  reveals  the  high- 
est possibilities  of  the  human  soul,  and 
their  dependence  on  habitual  communion 
between  man  and  God^'  (Conclusion,  pp. 
651-2). 


146  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

His  Critical  Metliods  and  Negative 
Results. 

We  have  endeavored  to  note  faithfull^^ 
the  method  and  results  of  Dr.  Martineau, 
and  to  abstain  from  running-  criticism.  We 
have  read  his  biography  and  gazed  upon 
his  portrait  of  our  Lord  with  mingled  pain 
and  astonishment  and  resentment.  We 
have  spared  the  reader  a  resume  of  Book 
JF.,  in  which  he  treats  in  the  same  negative 
way  the  various  Christian  ^'  Theories  of 
the  Person  of  Jesus  "  and  ^'  Theories  of  the 
Work  of  Jesus."  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
he  does  not  treat  the  thoughts  of  Fathers, 
councils  and  theologians  on  these  topics 
with  any  greater  regard  or  conservation 
than  he  does  those  of  the  writers  of  the 
New  Testament. 

We  have  endeavored  to  be  just,  in  order 
that  we  might  criticise  justl}^  this  work  of 
a  great  devout  man. 

The  title  of  this  book  is  ''  The  Seat  of 
Authority  in  BeligionJ'    But  the  field 


IN  RELIGION.  147 

covered  by  his  work  includes  (1)  What  is 
the  ^Tound  of  faith  ?  (2)  What  is  "  The 
Faith,''  neg-atively  considered  ?  His  sub- 
stantial repl3^  to  the  first  is,  that  faith  is 
faith,  or  an  immediate  apprehension  of  an 
unmecTiated  revelation  of  God  to  the  soul. 
To  the  second  his  substantial  reply  is  that 
''The  Faith"  of  Evangelists,  Apostles, 
fathers,  councils,  creeds,  theologians 
and  Church  is  not  '^  the  faith,"  but  only 
'^  illusions  from  obsolete  stages  of  civiliza- 
tion," '^  evolved  from  what  is  transient, 
unhistorical  and  m3^thological,'^  wholly 
concealing  the  truth. 

It  is  this  latter  and  larger  part  of  his 
Avork  that  demands  chief  criticism. 

(1.)  A  few  remarks  must,  however,  be 
offered  upon  his  first  topic — faith  and  its 
ground.  Dr.  Martineau  is  here  a  Quaker 
in  religion  and  an  intuition alist  in  phi- 
losophy. He  rejects  all  mediations  as  an 
obstruction  and  an  impertinence.  ''Re- 
vealed religion  is  an  immediate  divine 
knowledge,   strictly    personal    and    indi- 


148  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

vidual,  and  must  be  born  anew  in  every 
mind'^  (p.  307).  He  joins  with  those 
who  ask  us  to  set  aside  the  divine  influ- 
ences transmitted  to  us  by  history,  as 
impertinent  obtrusions  between  the  soul 
and  God,  and  to  retire  wholly  to  the  ora- 
cle within  for  private  audience  with  God, 
though  professedly  acknowledging-  the 
danger  in  this  position. 

Id  his  j^ref ace  he  also  says,  "  I  am  pre- 
pared to  hear,  after  dispensing  with  mir- 
acles and  infallible  persons,  I  have  no 
right  to  speak  of  aiitliority  at  all,  the  in- 
tuitional assurance  which  I  substitute  for 
it  being  nothing  but  confidence  in  m.j  own 
reason."  To  this  he  demurs  that  his  in- 
tuitions are  not  his  own  but  God's — their 
source  is  Divine.  This  position  in  religion 
is  certainly  the  reductio  ad  ahsurdum — 
one  phase  of  Protestantism.  It  is  to  be 
noted,  however,  that  Dr.  Martineau  is  en- 
tirelj^  unjust  to  Protestants,  in  not  noting 
his  mark  of  their  reformation.  He  confines 
them  to  a  hook-religion,  almost  dishon- 


IN  RELIGION.  149 

estl^^  ignoring'  their  distinctive  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith  of  the  individual. 
The  Protestant,  however,  is  more  just 
and  rational  than  he  himself  ;  for  the 
Protestant  does  make  this  faith  of  the 
individual  dependent  upon,  mediated  bj" 
the  Gospel  records  of  the  life  of.  God  m 
the  soul  of  Jesus. 

In  philosoph3^  this  theory  of  immediate 
intuitional  knowledge  by  individuals  has 
had  a  history  that  ought  to  suffice  to 
show  its  utter  abstractness  and  untruth- 
fulness. Mediation  is  the  method  of  the 
universe  and  the  life  of  the  Spirit.  The 
immediate — if  such  a  thing-  is  thinkable — 
is  the  crude,  raw,  uninformed,  uneduca- 
ted, uncivilized,  unchristianized  and  un- 
rationalized.  We  feel,  Ave  live,  we  know 
only  through  mediation,  through  rela- 
tions to  a  surrounding  set  of  mediations. 
Intuitionalism  in  philosoph}^,  as  Quaker- 
ism in  religion,  is  a  negation  that  only 
lives  by  surreptitiously  appropriating  all 
the  mediations  that  it  profoundly  denies. 


150  REASON  Ah'D  AUTHORITY 

Let  Dr.  Martineau  really  blot  out  and  un- 
relate  himself  fr6m  all  the  thoughts  of 
evaug-elists  about  Christ  and  all  the  creed 
and  deed  of  his  professed  Church,  from 
the  whole  of  the  Christian  sentiment,  cul- 
ture and  civilization  in  which  he  has 
been  bathed  from  earliest  years,  and  he 
would  be  in  some  primitive  stage  of  na- 
ture-religion, worshipping  a  log  or  a  stone. 
Without  the  mediation  of  the  Chiistian 
Church,  history  and  life,  he  would  never 
know  there  was  a  Christ,  or  have  any 
loftier  human  ideal  than  a  Hottentot.  In 
philosophy  he  would  be  equally  primitive, 
and  therefore  equalh"  incaiDable  and  un- 
worthy of  a  thought. 

Criticism  of  His  Book  by  Contrast  with 
the  Lux  Mundi. 

Yet  Dr.  Martineau's  conception  of 
faith  as  a  personal  conviction  of  relation 
with  God  is  almost  identical  with  that  of 
Canon  Holland,  in  the  first  essay  in  Lux 
Mundi.   Canon  Holland  makes  ^'  faith  an 


IN  RELIGION,  151 

elemental  act  of  the  personal  self/'  the  mo- 
tion in  us  of  our  sonship  in  the  Father, 
the  conscious  recog'nition  and  realization 
of  our  inherent  filial  adhesion  to  God," 
* '  our  personal  intimacy  with  God . "  "To 
the  end  faith  remains  an  act  of  personal 
and  spiritual  adhesion."  Both  Dr.  Marti- 
neau  and  Canon  Holland  have  the  Evan- 
gelical or  Protestant  conception  of  faith. 
II.  Whence,  then,  the  difference,  when 
thej^  pass  from  this  to  the  concrete  con- 
tent which  this  faith  receives  and  lives 
by  ?  Whence  the  immense  difference  as 
to  the  amount  and  w^orth  of  "  The  Faith  " 
as  held  by  Dr.  Martineau  and  the  authors 
of  ^' Lux  MiincW'?  The  difference  does 
not  come,  let  us  say,  from  either  igno- 
rance or  rejection  of  German  criticism  by 
the  authors  of  the  latter  volume.  They 
have  studied  the  same  works  with  open 
mind.  They  have  accepted  the  principles 
and  man}^  of  the  results  of  this  criticism, 
and  "  plead  that  theology  ma^^  leave  the 
field  open  for  the  free  discussion  of  these 


152  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

questions  wliich  Biblical  criticism  lias  re- 
cently been  raising" "  (p.  301). 

Every  form  of  literature  is  conceded  as 
entering'  into  the  complex  of  inspired  Scrip- 
tures. ^'  A  considerable  idealizing-  element 
in  the  Old  Testament  history  "  is  recog"- 
nized.  Mj^th  and  parable,  poetic  and 
dramatic  composition,  are  as  much  vehicles 
of  Divine  revelation  as  plain  prose. 

So  also  is  the  historical  method  welcomed 
as  an  aid  to  the  explaining-  of  the  how  and 
why  of  the  form  of  Church  polit3^  creed 
and  ritual.  The  g-radualness  of  the  Spirit's 
method,  the  development  throug-h  the 
imperfect  to  the  less  impei^fect  in  all  these 
forms  is  ivMy  recog'nized.  The  Christian 
Church  has  always  been  "a  hope,  not  a 
realization ;  a  tendenc^^  not  a  result ;  a 
life  in  process,  not  a  ripened  fruit."  ^^  The 
true  self  of  the  Church  is  the  Holy  Spirit, 
but  a  g-reat  deal  in  the  Church  at  any  date 
does  not  belong*  to  her  true  self,  and  is  ob- 
scuring- the  Spirit's  mind  "  (pp.  276,  277). 

The  theor}^  of  evolution  is  also  frankly 


•     IN  RELIGION.  153 

accepted,  cong-enial  as  it  is  with  the  his- 
torical method.  It  is  accepted  as  involving- 
new  wa^'s  of  their  attitude  towards  all 
knowledge.  '^  Organisms,  nations,  lan- 
g-uages,  institutions,  customs,  creeds,  have 
all  come  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  their 
development,  and  we  feel  that  to  under- 
stand Avhat  a  thing  really  is,  we  must 
examine  how  it  came  to  he.  .  .  .  Our 
religious  opinions,  like  all  things  else  that 
have  come  down  on  the  current  of  develop- 
ment, must  justify-  their  existence  b^^  an 
appeal  to  the  past.  .  .  In  the  face  of 
the  historical  spirit  of  the  age,  the  study 
of  past  theology  can  never  again  be  re- 
garded as  merel^^  a  piece  of  religious  anti- 
quarianism"  (pp.  151,  152).  The  physical, 
mental,  moral  and  religious  possessions  of 
humanit}^,  all  come  under  the  conception 
of  evolution  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  incarnation.  Thought  is  alive,  in 
movement  in  both  God  and  man,  ^inca- 
pable of  being  chained  to  any  one  mode 
of  expression ;   incapable  of  being  stereo- 


154  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

typed"  (163).  As  to  Christianity,  pre- 
Christian  rehgions  and  philosophy  are  rec- 
og-nized  as  positive  preparations  and  con- 
tributions ;  "  all  g-reat  teachers,  of  what- 
ever kind  being  vehicles  of  revelation " 
(165).  So,  too,  ever^^  student  in  science 
contributes  to  Christian  thought,  ^'his 
discoveries  being  in  fact  revelations."  All 
past  religions,  philosoph}^  and  science  aid 
in  "  the  progressive  purification  of  the 
religious  idea  of  God,  till  he  is  revealed 
as  what  he  is  to  a  thinking  Christian 
people  of  to-day — the  Object  of  reverent 
worship,  the  moral  ideal,  the  truth  of 
nature  and  man  "  (p.  56).  As  full  justice 
is  done  pagan  religions  as  could  be  asked 
by  any  impartial  student.  '^  In  them  Christ 
was  schooling  himself  for  incarnation. " 

Bouleversment  of  this  Party^s  Metliod. 

A  more  complete  bouleversment  of 
method  has  never  been  seen  in  any  Teligious 
partj^  With  these  writers  at  least  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  mere  *^^  party  "  and  has  be- 


IN  RELIGION.  155 

come  a  ^'school  of  thought."  They  hold, 
with  the  Greek  fathers,  "  the  true  succes- 
sors of  Plato  and  Aristotle  "  (p.  167),  that 
'^  Christianity^  is  a  Divine  philosophy  and 
the  Church  its  school"  (p.  321).  It  has 
assimilated  the  Broad  Church  element.  It 
illustrates,  as  Heg-elianism  itself  has  done, 
Heg-el's  dictum  that  "  a  party  truly 
shows  itself  to  have  won  the  victory  when 
it  breaks  up  into  two  ]3arties ;  for  so  it 
proves  that  it  contains  in  itself  the  prin- 
ciple with  which  it  first  had  to  conflict,  and 
thus  that  it  has  got  beyond  the  one-sided- 
ness  which  was  incidental  to  its  first 
expression."  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether 
or  not  the  Broad  Church  school  can  assim- 
ilate the  Christian  heritage  contended 
for  by  this  party.  It  still  orientales,  not 
that  it  ma}^  stand  gazing  upon  a  fixed 
historical  fact,  but  that  it  maj'-  trace  the 
ra^^s  of  the  immundated  Lux  Dei.  Thus, 
with  Hegel  these  writers  find  in  "  this 
process  of  development  and  realization  of 


156  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

spirit    the    true   Theodiccea.'"      (Heg-el's 
Philosoph}^  of  History,  477. ) 

Here,  too,  we  find  the  secret  of  the  im 
mense  difference  between  them  and  Dr. 
Martineau  as  to  ''  The  Faith. "  It  is  in  their 
philosopl^y  of  histor^^,  Avhich  is  that  of  He- 
gel. It  is  their  philosoph}^  of  histor^^  which 
puts  all  the  past  in  a  new  lig'ht,  and  compels 
them  to  stand  b^^  the  accumulated  heritage 
of  the  Chi'istian  Church.  Here  these  wri- 
ters rationally  diverge  widely  and  radi- 
cally from  Dr.  Martineau.  I  have  quoted 
Canon  Holland's  idea  of  the  act  of  faith  as 
identical  with  that  of  Dr.  Martineau.  But 
while  he  seeks  to  hold  it  in  abstract  sub- 
jective isolation,  Canon  Holland  recognizes 
that  it  has  had  a  history  and  a  develop- 
ment. Faith  necessarily  acts  and  reacts 
upon  all  the  complicated  relations  of  life. 
It  objectifies  itself  and  gathers  all  its  acts 
into  a  bod3^,  a  creed,  a  cult.  Faith  begets 
"  the  Faith,"  as  it  apprehends  the  pro- 
gressive I'evelations  of  its  Divine  Object. 
In  an  exercise  of  faith  to-day  we  cannot 


IN  RELIGION.  157 

'*  force  ourselves  back  into  primitive  days 
and  imagine  ourselves  cliildren   again." 
Our  story  has  been  a  long  and  difficult 
one.     Our  faitli  has  implicated  itself  with 
a  vast  body  of  feelings,  fancies  and  facts. 
The  faith,  as  we  have  it,  is  now  old.     "  It 
has   had  a  history  like  everything  else, 
and  it  reaches  us  to-day  in  a  form  which 
that  history  behind  it    can  alone  make 
intelligible.     Like  all  else  that  is  human, 
it  has  grown.     The  details  of  events  are 
the  media  of  that  growth.     .     .     .     But 
the  history,  which  constitutes  our   diffi- 
culty, is  its  own  answer.     .     .     .    We  cry 
out  for  the  simple  primitive  faith.     But 
once  again  this  is  a  mistake  of  dates.    We 
cannot  ask  to  be  as  if  eighteen  centuries 
had  dropped  out  unnoticed — as  if  the  mind 
had  slumbered  since  the  days  of  Christ,  and 
had  never  asked  a  question.    .    .    .    Now 
w^e  must  attain   our  cohesion  with  God, 
subject  to  all  the  necessities  laid  upon  us 
by  the  fact  that  we  enter  on  the  world's 
stage  at  a  late  hour,  when  the  drama  has 


158  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

alread^^  developed  its  plot  and  complicated 
its  situations.  »  This  is  why,  in  full  view  of 
the  facts,  we  cannot  believe  in  Christ  with- 
out finding"  that  our  belief  includes  the 
Bible  and  the  Creeds"  (pp.  33,  37,  48). 

These  New  Leaders  Change  it  from  a 
*^  Party  "  into  a  ^'School  of  Thought.^' 

This  is  a  very  opposite  way  of  appreciat- 
ing histor^^  from  that  of  Dr.  Martineau, 
who  rejects  ^^all  that  men  have  thought 
about  Christ " — all  ideas  that  Apostles, 
fathers,  councils,  theologians  and  the 
Church  have  uttered  about  the  person  and 
work  of  Jesus,  as  perversions  and  hin- 
drances to  a  true  Christian  faith.  Dr. 
Martineau  is  abstract  and  unhistorical. 
They  are  historically  concrete  and  ration- 
al. They  hold  the  same  as  Hegel,  who 
says,  ^^  It  is  important  that  the  Christian 
religion  be  not  limited  to  the  literal  words 
of  Christ  himself.  It  is  clear  that  the 
Christian  community  produces  theFaitht. 
It  is  not  merely  the  mechanical  sum  of 


IN  RELIGION.  159 

Christ's  words,  but  the  product  of  the 
Church  enlightened  by  the  Spirit." 

With  their  philosophy  of  history,  too, 
must  be  coupled  their  own  historical  edu- 
tion.  They  have  been  born  and  nurtured  in 
historical  and  institutional  Christianity. 
They  surve^^  past  and  present  Christianity 
from  within  the  institution.  Dr.  Martin- 
eau's  survey  is  practically  from  outside  of 
such  Christianity^.  He  will  not  recognize 
it  as  bone  of  his  bone  and  flesh  of  his  flesh. 
It  is  this  that  prevents  him  from  having-  a 
true  historical  appreciation  of  the  Church, 
and  causes  him  to  regard  its  eighteen  cen- 
turies of  history  as  practically  an  apostasy 
from,  an  obscuration  of,  the  Imx  Mundi, 

The  characteristic  difference  between 
them  is  the  same  as  that  between  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  Dr.  Martineau,  with  all  his 
splendor  of  imager}^,  subtile  analysis  and 
charm  of  language,  is  still ''  all  in  the  air," 
like  a  man  in  a  balloon,  not  going  anj^where 
in  particular.  The  others  are  working 
citizens  and     intellectual    rulers    in  the 


160  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

civitas  Dei  beneath,  of  which  he  catches 
only  g-hmpses  and  distorted  views  throug'li 
the  mists  of  earth. 

Dr.  Martineau  is  seeking-  for  primitive, 
undeveloped  Christianity.  He  wants  to 
find  the  unfledged  eagle  in  the  unaddled 
Qgg.  He  is  straining  his  eye  to  catch  "  the 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land . ' '  They 
are  enjoying  the  light  which  enlightens 
and  warms  now,  as  it  has  eighteen  centu- 
ries of  Christian  folk.  They  have  suckled 
at  the  breast  of  the  Christian  social  or- 
ganism ;  he  seeks  to  be  a  spiritual  Simeon 
Stylites,  rejecting*  all  media  between  him- 
self and  God ;  a  Christian  Melchisedec, 
without  genealogy.  An  old  Grecian  said 
that  the  best  education  he  could  choose  for 
his  son  would  be  to  make  him  a  citizen  in 
a  g-ood  state  with  good  laws.  The}^  have 
become  good  Christians  in  the  same  ob- 
jective social  way.  The}'  recognize  their 
spiritual  ancestr}^  and  home  training. 
They  have  been  loyal  members  of  a  good 
Church. 


IN  RELIGION.  161 

So,  too,  their  conception  of  the  Church 
and  its  history  fits  into  a  world-process  and 
renders  that  process  intelligible.  His  con- 
ception is  so  purely  subjective  that  it  has 
no  place  outside  of  himself,  no  consistency 
with  any  large  historical  process  or  insti- 
tution. Even  the  Christ  concealed  by 
history  cannot  be  seen,  he  confesses,  with- 
out some  distorting-  subjective  conceptions 
of  his  own.  Thus  his  own,  as  well  as  the 
corporate  conceptions  of  the  Church,  hide 
what  he  would  gladly  find  and  use  as  an 
interpreter  of  his  own  immediate  appre- 
hension of  God.  His  Js  the  neo-Platonic 
effort  at  ecstasy  which  lo^icaUy  leads,  as 
it  has  always  historically  led,  to  despair. 
King'sley's  spirited  description  of  H^^patia's 
attempt  is  forever  true  on  earth.  They 
believe  in  the  divine  immanence,  especially 
in  the  logic  of  Christian  history,  that  the 
human  spirit  through  eighteen  centuries 
has  no  more  been  abandoned  by  God  than 
has  nature.  This  history  has  been  but  the 
actualizing  gradually  of  the  true  nature 


163  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

of  man  through  a  practical  assimilation 
and  a  rational  apprehension  of  the  image 
of  God. 

The  history  of  spirit  is  its  deed.  It 
is  objectively  only  what  it  does,  and  its 
deed  has  been  the  Christian  Chmxh  .and 
civilization.  The  true  history-  of  man  is 
that  of  his  institutions,  and  none  is  great- 
er than  the  Church.  He  believes  largely 
in  the  Divine  absence  from  Christian  his- 
tory. His  study  of  it  is  that  which  Hegel 
characterizes  as  reflective  history,  where 
"  the  workman  approaches  his  task  with 
his  oivn  spirit — a  spirit  distinct  from  that 
of  the  element  he  is  to  manipulate." 
Their  method  is  that  Hegel, ''  a  thoughtful 
consideration  of  history  Avith  the  simple 
conception  that  "  Reason  (Divine  Wisdom) 
is  the  sovereign  of  the  world ;  that  the 
history  of  the  world,  therefore,  presents 
us  with  a  rational  process."  (Philoso- 
phy of  History,  p.  9.)  Indeed,  one  can 
read  beneath'nearlv'everv  line  of  their  vol- 


IN  RELIGION.  163 

ume  the  inspiring  conceptions  of  Heg-el's 
'^  Philosophy  of  History.'' 

Dr.  Martineau  will  certainl^^  afford  the 
chronic  revilers  of  Protestantisni,  who 
know  not  Hegel,  mnch  less  Christ,  a  good 
example  of  what  the^^  say  is  the  logical 
outcome  of  Protestantism.  We  demur 
in  toto  to  such  a  conception  of  Protes- 
tantism, which  hears  the  visible  imprima- 
tur of  the  Divine  blessing.  But  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau's  extrenie  individualism  and  utter 
lack  of  historical  appreciation  certainl}^ 
does  call  for  a  halt.  Here  is  a  decisive 
parting  of  ways.  It  is  either  concrete, 
hisJ:orical,.  institutional  Christianity,  or  it 
is  nothing.  The  ''  Lux  Mundi  "  essay- 
ists vindicate  the  rationality  of  instituted 
Christianit3^  The}'  do  not,  like  their  pre- 
decessors and  spiritual  fathers,  stop  with 
an  uncriticised  acceptance  of  it,  nor,  like 
Dr.  Martineau,  with  a  critical  non-accept- 
ance. But  the}'  i^ass  through  criticism  to  a 
genuinely  historical  appreciation  and  a 
hearty  acceptance  of  their  Christian  heri- 


164  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

tage.  The  Church  has  never  yet  realized 
its  ideal,  which  however  is  its  basis  and 
goal.  Like  individual  Christians,  it  has 
gone  stumbling  to  and  fro  between  its  ideal 
and  its  caricature.  ^'  Non  adhuc  requat 
hoc  regniim.^'' 

Dean  Stanley's  "  Christian  Institu- 
tions "  is  the  elder  brother  of  their  volume. 
It  would  be  more  correct,  however,  to  call 
Baring-Gould's  book  the  congenial  pre- 
cursor of  ^^  Lux  Mundi."  Dean  Stanley's 
book  so  presents  the  historical  environ- 
ments as  to  make  them  seem  to  be  the 
efficient  cause  and  the  just  measure  of  the 
worth  of  Christian  institutions.  It  lacks 
the  philosophical  element. 

Their  Adoption  of  Hegelian  Concep- 
tions of  Rationality,  Revelation 
and  Authority. 

Hegel's  view  of  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  which  Principal  Gore  quotes,  is 
that  of  the  dignity,  worth  and  adequacy 
of  the  utterances  and  works  of  the  relig- 


IN  RELIGION.  165 

ious  consciousness  of  the  ethical  aristoc- 
racy^ of  the  community,  as  opposed  to 
those  of  a  subjective  capricious  individual- 
ism, which  Protestantism  is  not.  ''The 
idea  of  the  Cliurch  is  this,  that  it  widens 
Ufe  by  deepening-  the  sense  of  brotherhood  ; 
...  by  checking  the  results  of  isolated 
thinkers  by  contact  with  other  thinkers ; 
and  that  it  expands  and  deepens  worship 
by  eUminating  all  that  is  selfish  and  nar- 
row, and  giving  expression  to  common 
aims  and  feehngs  "  (p.  307).  "It  treats 
man  as  a  social  being  who  cannot  realize 
hmiself  in  isolation  "  (269).  He  can  be- 
come relatively  complete  only  in  social  re- 
lations, and  relativel}^  a  good  Christian 
by  being  a  g-ood  Churchman,  as  both 
Catholic  and  Protestant  vigorously  main- 
tain. 

If  we  are  to  choose,  then,  between  Dr. 
Martineau's  and  their  "  Seat  of  Authori- 
ty in  Religion,"  we  must,  as  rational  (and 
as  Christian)  men,  choose  with  those  who 
may  be  accused  of  sanctifying  all  Christian 


166  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

histoiy,  rather  than  with  him  who  ma^^ 
be  accused  of  reg-ardiiig-  it  all  as  profane 
and  atheistic. 

The  real  is  the  rational.  Institutions 
are  greater  than  men.  They  are  the 
utterances,  or  oitfe ranees,  of  the  Spirit,  to 
educe  the  incarnate  spirit  in  socialized 
man.  Unus  Clwistianus,  Niillus  Chris- 
tianus.  The  Church  is  to  the  individual 
what  languag-e  is  to  thougiit,  what  deed 
is  to  creed — vehicle  and  creator  at  once. 

The  conceptions  of  (1)  Rationalit}^  (2) 
Revelation  and  (3)  Authority  which  are 
regnant  in  this  volume  are  thoroughly 
Hegelian.  Thej^  steer  clear  of  the  ab- 
stract individualism,  of  which  Dr.  Martin- 
eau  is  a  conspicuous  tj'pe,  and  of  the  no 
less  abstract  socialism,  under  the  forin  of 
arbitrary  ecclesiastical  authority. 

1st.  The  reason  appealed  to  is  not  that 
of  the  abstract  individual,  but  that  of  cor- 
porate man,  as  objectified  or  done  into 
history.  The  image  of  God,  the  true  na- 
ture of  man,  is  recognized  as  being  gradu- 


IN  RELIGION,  167 

ally  educed  from  humanity  In  historic  pro- 
cess. Humanity  is  an  org-anism  on  its'i 
religious  no  less  than  on  its  political  side.j 
And  the  eduction  of  rational  relig'ion  is 
thei'efore  througli  social  religious  institu- 
tions, rather  than  through  prophet,  re- 
former, or  great  religious  leader  or  teach- 
er. These  are  but  the  organs,  the  mouth 
pieces  of  the  religious  consciousness  of  tha 
organism. 

Hegel  has  forever  made  it  impossible  to 
appeal  to  reason,  other  than  that  of  social 
man-,  expressed  in  his  institutions.  He 
has  forever  made  it  irrational  to  appeal 
to  the  subjective  views  of  parts  instead 
of  the  whole  of  the  organism.  He  has 
brought  back  again  the  Greek  ideal,  only 
synthesizing  therewith  more  justly  the 
subjective  element,  making  individuals  or- 
ganic members  of  the  organism — making 
the  organism  an  organism  of  organisms, 
the  life  of  the  whole  throbbing  through 
every  part — instead  of  standing*  above  the 


168  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

parts  and  mechanically  ordering"  them  in- 
to s^^stem. 

To  be  himself,  the  individual  must  be 
social.  To  realize  his  own  ideal  he  must 
realize  the  ideal  of  his  community.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  life  of  the  whole  can 
onl3"  manifest  and  realize  itself  through 
its  organic  members.  The  State  and 
Church  are  the  organisms  which  thus 
synthesize  and  live  through  the  life  of  their 
members.  They  gather  together  and 
most  completely  represent,  the  one  the 
moral,  the  other  the  religious  conscious- 
ness of  humanity.  They  are  its  objecti- 
fied reason.  To  be  a  member  of  a  good 
State  and  a  good  Church,  then,  is  the  only 
rational  wa}^  of  self-realization  for  the  in- 
dividual. The3^  limit  him  onl}^  to  educate 
and  realize  him,  just  as  the  family  does 
the  child.  The^^  are  his  true  wisdom  and 
his  higher  law. 

This  conception  of  corporate  reason  also 
leads  to  the  philosophy  of  history,  of 
which  Hegel  has  been  the  chosen  mouth- 


IN  RELIGION.  169 

piece  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  simply  that  of 
the  progressive  eduction  of  the  rationality 
of  man  in  his  institutions,  in  politics,  art, 
relig-ion  and  philosophy.  It  denies  chance 
and  affirms  reason  as  regnant  through- 
out history.  It  denies  '^  decadence  "  and 
"  cycles  "  of  history  repeating-  itself,  and 
afifirms  progress  in  history.  It  denies 
continuous  progress,  and  affirms  progress 
by  antithesis.  It  accepts  with  universal- 
ized significance  the  religious  view  of 
Provide7ice  in  history.  It  declines  to  in- 
dite the  whole,  no  less  than  certain  parts, 
of  history  for  unintelligibility  or  freedom 
from  the  control  of  immanent,  regnant 
Providence.  History  is  viewed  as  recital 
not  merely  of  events,  but  of  intelligent 
events — events  in  and  over  which  Provi- 
dence has  been  working. 

This,  too,  differentiates  it  from  the  em- 
pirical historical  method  so  much  in 
vogue  to-day.  This  perversion  of  the  true 
method  seeks  to  account  for  knowledge, 
morals,  religions,  and  all  institutions,  by 


170  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

showing-  the  historical  g-enesis,  or  the  em- 
pirical conditions  in  which  they  have  been 
manifested.  This  is  the  method  of  Her- 
bert Spencer,  denying-  antecedent  and  con- 
comitant rationality^,  or  the  teleolog-ical 
view.  But  teleology  alone  can  account  for 
rationality  and  progress.  The  true  first 
cause,  as  Aristotle  and  Hegel  have  seen, 
is  ''final  cause.''  Both  of  them,  and  also 
the  writers  of  "  Lux  Mundi,''  quote  with 
approval  the  first  utterance  of  this  truth 
outside  of  Scripture.  That  is  the  saying 
of  Anaxagoras  :  "  Reason  (Nors)  governs 
the  world. ^' 

This  conception  of  rationality^  in  history 
leads  to  the  recognition  that  the  real  at 
any  time  is  the  rational  for  that  time — e.g., 
the  Mosaic  economy  for  the  Jews  before 
Christ ;  and  to  the  kindred  conception 
that  might  makes  right — e.g.,  the  Roman 
and  the  Christian  domination  of  the  bar- 
barians. That  is,  Reason,  or  Divine  Wis- 
dom, has  been  able  to  "  order  the  unruly 
wills  and  affections  of  sinful  men."     But 


IN  RELIGION.  171 

it  also  forbids  the  ig-noring-  of  historical 
perspective.  It  implies  degrees  of  better 
and  worse,  though  "  the  soul  of  the  world 
is  good."  It  forbids  am-  abstract  re- 
affirmation, no  less  than  any  abstract  de- 
nial of  the  ideals,  faith  and  deeds  of  the 
past.  "  Moses  said,  .  .  .  but  I  say  unto 
you."  It  also  forbids  the  mere  glorifica- 
tion of  any  status  quo  of  any  existing 
form,  as  well  as  the  uncritical  acceptance 
of  forms  of  the  past.  It  does  not  permit 
a  consecration  of  all  the  past  history  of 
the  Church  as  ultimate,  nor  the  idealizing 
of  an  arbitrarily  chosen  part  of  that  history 
— the  reverence  '^  for  a  past  that  never 
was  a  present."  It  interprets  the  Church 
as  the  institution  and  organ  of  Christian/ 
consciousness.  It  is  the  progressive  em- 
bodiment of  the  Divine  idea  as  to  man's 
relation  to  God  on  the  side  of  emotion, 
imagination  and  devoted  will.  It  is  the 
standing  record  of  the  rational  education 
of  man  on  his  religious  side.  It  thus  pre- 
sents a  series  of    increasingly  adequate 


172  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

manifestations  and  vehicles  of  the  Lux 
Mundi,  positing"  successive  forms,  and 
successively  transcending-  and  fulfilling- 
them  in  richer  shape.  It  is  the  highest 
embodiment  of  the  relig-ious  relation  in 
corporate  and  institutional  form.  It  is  a 
complex  of  the  Divine  idea  and  of  human 
needs,  feeling-s,  convictions  and  concep- 
tions, through  which  the  idea  takes  form 
and  shines.  It  has  a  warp  and  a  woof. 
The  woof  is  not  constitutive,  as  empiricists 
affirm,  but  the  warp  is. 

'Tis  that  divine 
Idea  taking  shrine 
Of  crystal  flesh, 
Through  which  to  shine. 

The  Church  militant  is  the  self-realiza- 
tion of  Spirit  in  temporal  process.  All  its 
merely  temporal  couditions  do  not  account 
for  its  g'enesis  and  development.  These 
would  be  merel}^  chaos  without  the  opera- 
tive Lux  MuncUy  without  the  logical  pre- 
supposition of  creative  Reason  as  the 
chronological  antecedent  and  concomitant, 


IN  RELIGION.  173 

or  architect.  In  the  beginning',  and 
throughout,  ^\  was  the  Word."  And  yet  the 
historical  conditions  which  determined  its 
form  and  progress  were  of  divine  choice 
and  work.  The  world  was  prepared  for  the 
incarnation,  and  its  subsequent  develop- 
ment in  life,  thought  and  worship.  The 
divine  immanence  la}^  back  of  chaos,  pro- 
toj)lasm,  and  all  the  higher  conditions — 
plwsical,  social,  intellectual  and  political — 
that  have  entered  into  historical  Chris- 
tianity. Without  the  culture  of  Greece 
and  Rome  as  well  as  of  Judea,  Christianity 
could  never  have  been  what  it  is. 

Both  of  these  Hegelian  conceptions  of 
Reason  as  corporate  and  objective,  and 
of  the  philosophy  of  history,  have  been 
so  thoroughly  assimilated  by  the  writers 
of  the  Lux  Mundi  as  to  dominate  all  their 
apologetics  for  the  Christian  Church. 

So,  too,  they  are  thoroughly  permeated 
by  Hegel's  conception  of  revelation.  On 
the  God  ward  side  it  is  manifestation ;  on 
the  manward  side  it  is  discovery.     All  dis- 


174  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

covery  made  by  man  in  smy  and  every 
sphere  of  life  and  thought  is  revelation. 
All  history  is  the  record  of  man's  seeking 
God,  who  had  always  and  everywhere 
been  seeking  man.  The  rationality^  of  his- 
tor3^  is  but  another  form  of  statement  for 
revelation.  The  modern  rediscovery^  of  the 
truth  of  God's  immanence  is  really  a  rev- 
elation through  philosophers  and  scien- 
tists. So,  too,  the  poets  of  the  Vedas  and 
the  Gathas,  the  Egyptian  priest,  and  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world,  were 
vehicles  of  the  Divine  revelation,  enabled, 
at  least  in  a  measure,  to  discover  or  spell 
out  the  manifestations  of  God  (p.  170). 
Both  the  orthodox  and  the  ecclesiastical 
conceptions  of  revelation  have  passed  in 
music  out  of  sight,  in  this  larger  concep- 
tion. 

The  same  is  true  as  to  their  conception 
of  authority.  Reason  is  alwaj^s  and  every- 
where both  the  Law  and  the  Lawgiver. 
Hooker's  conception  of  law,  its  origin  and 
sanction  in  its  manifold   forms,  was  far 


IN  RELIGION.  175 

ahead  of  that  of  his  times.  These  writers 
have  not  '^  shelved"  him.  His  view  fits 
into  their  conception  of  '^The  Religion  of 
the  Incarnation/'  and  of  the  authority  of 
the  Church. 

Their  philosophy  of  history  inevitably 
leads  them  to  the  maintenance  of  the 
authority  of  the  Church  over  and  through 
the  individual.  But  it  also  modifies, 
rationalizes,  their  appeal  to  '^  hear  the 
Church,"  believe  its  creeds,  join  in  its 
worship,  and  practice  its  morality.  This 
is  especially  noticeable  in  the  essa3^s  on 
'^  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,"  ^^  The 
Incarnation  and  the  Development  of  Dog- 
ma," ^'  The  Holy  Spirit  and  Inspiration," 
and  ^^ The  Church."  Extended  quotation 
in  proof  of  this  is  beyond  our  limits.  The 
reader  may  refer  to  Mr.  Moberly's  inter- 
pretation of  the  Athanasian  Creed  (p.  215), 
to  Mr.  Gore's  ''  perfectl}^  simple  idea"  of 
authority  (p.  271),  to  Mr.  Illingsworth's 
answer  to  the  objection  that  mutability 
and  development  of  creed  are  opposed  to 


176  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

its  divine  authoritativeness  (p.  163),  and 
to  Mr.  Lock  on  the  authoritative  teaching* 
of  the  Church  (p.  323-4). 

Reason  is  '^  practical "  as  well  as 
'^pure."  It  is  not  a  mere  weak  idea.  It 
fulfils  itself  on  earth  by  instituting*  itself 
in  temporal  forms.  It  has  been  thus  ful- 
filling itself  in  and  through  the  Church, 
which  is  therefore  objective  authoritative 
reason  for  every  Christian.  To  be  a  good 
Churchman  is 'essential  to  being  a  good 
Christian,  a  good  man.  In  and  through 
its  social  ethos  man  is  to  be  confirmed  and 
educated  in  the  religious  relation.  It  bears 
vfith  it  the  marks  of  natural,  rational 
authority  of  all  God-given  constitutive 
environments.  Submission  to  its  author- 
ity is  the  rational  submergence  of  imme- 
diate subjective  undeveloped  individualism 
in  the  whole  historic  life  of  the  great 
brotherhood  of  a  common  Lawgiver  and 
Father. 

So  wide-reaching  is  this  world  power  to- 
day, that  in  Europe  and  America  it  besets 


IN  RELIGION.  177 

nearl}^  every  man  behind  and  before.  In  the 
womb,  school,  cradle  and  society  it  condi- 
tions and  stamps  nearly  ever^^  one  Avith  its 
g-enial  mark.  From  the  cradle  to  the  grave 
it  appeals  to  its  children  with  the  voice  of 
paternal  authority.  It  asks  for  no  other 
than  filial  response  and  recognition  of  its 
past,  present  and  promised  beneficence  in 
educing-  the  religious  relation  implicit  in 
man  as  man.  This  is  the  sort  of  authority 
ascribed  to  Church,  creed  and  cult  in  this 
volume.  Of  infallibility  and  arbitrary  or 
uncriticised  authority  there  is  scarcely  a 
trace.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  maintained 
th^it  credo  ut  intelUgain  is  founded  upon 
an  ultimate  underlying  intellexi  ut  cre- 
derem  (p.  189).  The  core  of  the  authority 
of.  the  Church  is  the  fact  of  its  being  the 
adequate  ethical  and  historical  medium  of 
the  religious  life. 


178  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

Two  Criticisms  of  Their  Work, 

Their  Conception  of  the  Church  too  Insular  to 

be  quite  Catholic. 

And  3^et  one  criticism  must  be  offered  as 
to  their  conception  of  the  Church.  It  is  too 
insular  to  be  quite  catholic.  They  do  not 
use  a  map  constructed  on  a  sufficiently 
larg-e  scale,  when  defining-  the  boundaries 
of  the  Church.  The  idola  trihus  still 
receives  some  homage  in  their  modern 
Oxford.  It  is  this  which  prevents  them 
recog-nizing"  that  outside  of  the  Episcopal 
branches  of  the  Church  there  are  also 
other  vital  and  fruitful  branches.  *^  Hin- 
ter  dem  Berge  sind  auch  Leute.^'  Outside 
of  the  Greek,  Roman  and  Anglican  com- 
munions there  are  also  Christian  commu- 
nions. The  whole  rich  fruitful  Christian 
life  of  modern  Europe  and  America  is  a 
part  of  history.  Their  historio-philosophi- 
cal  method  avouM  seem  to  compel  them  to 
recognize  and  synthesize  all  this  in  their 
genial  conception  of  the  Church,  in  order 


IN  RELIGION.  179 

to  make  it  catholic,  as  well  as  in  order 
to  maintain  tbeir  Hegelian  philosophy  of 
histor}^ — that  history  is  not  an  apostasy, 
but  that  Nors  governs  the  world. 

Yet  Mr.  Lock  feels  compelled  to  draw  a 
distinction  within  the  limits  of  the  baptized, 
between  those  within  Episcopal  folds  and 
those  of  other  folds,  who  are  schismatics. 
Thus  not  only  the  Dissenters  in  England 
but  Kirkmen  in  Scotland,  State-Clmrch- 
men  in  Germany,  Sweden  and  other 
countries,  are  ruled  out  of  the  Saviour's 
one  flock,  and  the  validity  of  their  minis- 
try and  sacraments  denied.  They  reall}^ 
base  their  apologetic  for  the  Catholic 
Church  upon  its  social  religious  power  for 
good.  Yet  these  other  national  Churches 
are  as  eflacient  forms  of  instituted  Chris- 
tianity^ and  as  valid  powers  for  promoting 
the  extension  of  the  incarnation  as  the 
Church  of  England.  They  manifest  the 
same  historical  vindication  as  the  Church 
of  Rome  or  the  Church  of  England,  as  set 
forth  by  these  writers.     They  are  simply 


180  REASON  AND  A  UTHORITY 

false  to  their  spirit  and  method,  in  failing 
to  integrate  these  forms  as  real  org-anic 
members  of  the  Catholic  Church.  In  this 
they  are  neither  historical,  nor  philo- 
sophical, nor  Heg'elian,  nor  Christian.* 
They  have  begun  with  the  true  catholic 
method  of  studjing  Church  histor^^,  but 
they  only  partially  realize  the  results  to 
Avhich  this  method  will  inevitably  lead 
them. 

This  method  looks  at  historj^  as  an  eter- 
nal violation  of  law,  because  it  is  life  and 
movement  which  destroy  that  which  has 
been  in  fulfilling  it — which  shatters  law^s 
which  have  shackled  the  human  spirit. 
Thus  Jesus  Christ  violated  the  Law  to  ful- 
fil it  in  the  Gospel.  Thus  the  Reformation 
violated  the  ecclesiastical  law  to  realize 
a  larger  and  more  ethical  extension  of  the 
Incarnation .     This  method  of  history  must 

*  For  a  full  discussion  of  this  question  of  the 
Church,  I  may  refer  to  my  Appendix  on  Christian 
Unity,  in  "Studies  in  HegeFs  Philosophy  of  Re- 
ligion.^* 


IN  RELIGION.  181 

be  allowed  proper  scope  or  be  denied  en- 
tii'ely.  This  latter  can  only  be  done  b}^  those 
who  set  themselves  abov^e  history — too 
busy  building-  the  tombs  of  the  old  proph- 
ets to  see  the  new  ones  in  their  midst. 
The  Church  is  alwa3^s  a  means  to  the 
end  of  the  perfecting'  of  humanit}^  It 
meets  new  needs  at  new  epochs  with  tem- 
porary or  ultimate  abrogation  of  laws 
hitherto  essential  to  this  end.  Accom- 
plished histor}^  indicates  at  least  a  tempo- 
rary violation  of  Episcopacy  as  the  normal 
type  of  Church  polit}^ 

If  the  development  of  Christian  life  in 
new  forms  since,  and  owing  to,  the  Refor- 
mation ;  if  this  break  with*  the  old  law 
seems  like  sinful  schism,  it  is  owing  to  a 
defective  theor}^  which  needs  replacing  by 
a  theory  more  adequate  to  the  facts.  A 
narrow,  arrogant  and  formal  Anglicanism 
is  surely  not  adequate  to  the  facts,  nor  to 
the  work  of  restoring  the  old  law  of  Epis- 
copac3^  to  meet  the  new  life.  And  3^et  we 
look  forward  and  work  for  this  larger  re- 


183  REASON  AND  AUTHORITY 

suit.  The  integration  of  the  new  and  the 
old,  of  Protestantism  and  Catholicism,  is  a 
g-oal  that  seems  as  necessaiy  as  it  seems 
distant. 

(2)  Tlie  danger  of  our  uncritical  restoration  of 
so-called  Catholic  customs,  or  the  vagaries 
of  Ritualism. 
Another  criticism,  too,  ma}^  be  offered  as 
to  their  conception  of  the  so-called  "  Cath- 
olic heritag-e,"  which  their  part^^  is  labor- 
ing so  zealously  to  restore.  We  find 
but  little  objectionable  in  the  text  of 
their  volume,  except  this  one  narrow 
conception  of  the  Church.  We  do  not 
know  how  much  of  effete  form  and  ritual 
they  believe*  in  adopting.  But  knowing 
them  to  be  leaders  of  that  party  which  has 
sought  a  restoration  of  all  sorts  of  ecclesias- 
tical rubbish,  we  feel  tempted  to  read  be- 
tween the  lines  of  the  text  and  make  them 
participes  criminis.  This  revival  of 
^^  catholic  customs  "  by  a  party  ne  plus 
ultra  Protestant  dissenters  is  an  incoming 
flood  in  our  Church  that  needs  to  be  met 


IN  RELIGION.  183 

with  some  hesitating  criticism.  Much  of 
it  is  unintellectual  and  unethical  romanti- 
cism. All  that  can  be  done  to  really  adorn 
the  Bride  of  Christ,  all  the  beauty  of  wor- 
ship that  is  genuinely  artistic  and  not 
tawdr}^  ornament,  is  to  be  welcomed.  But 
let  this  "be  done  decently  and  in  order" 
by  the  Church,  and  not  by  the  self-assumecL 
infallibility  of  Protestant  priests.  Let  it, 
too,  be  done  apart  from  the  desire  to  mag- 
nify the  sacerdotal  function  of  the  presby- 
ter above  his  ethical  function  as  a  leader 
andinspirer  of  men.  The  vagaries  of  in- 
dividuals in  this  line  in  our  Church  far  ex- 
ceed the  variations  of  Protestants,  with 
their  extempore  methods. 

Welcome  Their  Spirit  and  Method,  if 
not  all  of  Their  Eesults. 

However,  w^e  find  no  expressed  desire  on 
the  part  of  these  writers  to  be  the  promo- 
ters of  mere  ritualism.  They  seem  to  be 
thoroughly  enough  permeated  by  the  his- 
torical spirit  to  avoid  such  nonsense.     Let 


184     REASON  AND  A  UTHORITY  IN  RELIGION. 

US  take  them  at  their  text,  as  striving-  for 
the  restoration  of  the  organic  and  oecu- 
menical elements  of  the  Church,  some  of 
which  we  may  confess  have  been  neglected 
by  Protestants.  They  are  only  seeking  to 
restore  as  reason  what  had  been  given  up 
because  it  appeared  as  unreason.  This  is 
,but  the  return  movement  of  history  ful- 
filling by  temporary  or  partial  abrogation 
of  old  law.  The  Church  is  like  the  fabled 
Phoenix.  Growing  old,  she  fired  her  nest 
at  the  Reformation;  but  in  the  flames  she 
is  now  seeking  and  finding  renovation  and 
development.  We  bid  these  new  leaders 
of  this  movement  all  hail. 

If  the  so-called  Catholic  party  in  our 
Church  will  follow  these  new  leaders  and 
interpreters  of  ''The  Faith, ^^  the}^  may  be- 
come truly  Catholic,  and  be  in  the  fore- 
front of  the  Church  militant.  If  not,  the 
party  is  doomed  to  the  extinction  which 
all  isolation  and  lack  of  intelligence  in- 
volves. 


ERRATA. 

Page    43.  Ninth  line  from  top  for  -iGTevofx^.v  read  -iartvojuev. 

148.  Sixth  line  from  bottom  for  read  of. 

148.  Second  line  from  bottom  for  /i/'s  read  ///«. 

"      149.  Last  line  iox  profoundly  x^^?^^  professedly. 

"■      155.  Sixth  line  from  bottom,  for  or/^«/ci/^^  read  (9r/^«/«/^^. 

164.  Fifth  line  from  top  for  rcquat  read  regnat. 

•'      170.  Twelfth  line  from  bottom  for  Nors  read  Noi),-. 

179.  Third  line  from  top  for  Nors  read  ^t)v-. 

178.  Fourth  line  from  bottom  for  hisiorio  read  historico. 


PRESS  IfOTlCES. 


Extracts  from  Press  Notices  of  Sterrett's  "  Stud- 
ies in  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Religion." 

SECOND  EDITION  NOW  OUT. 
Price,  $2.00. 


"  A  more  vigorous  and  straightforward  piece  of 
writing,  as  well  as  of  thinking,  it  has  not  often  been 
my  fortune  to  meet  with.  The  book  before  us  is  fairly 
buo3^ant  in  its  vigor,  fairly  aggressive  in  its  straight- 
forwardness. The  purpose  of  the  book  is,  as  Dr. 
Sterrett  frankly  informs  us  in  his  preface,  apologetic. 
But  he  has  a  worthy  conception  of  apologetics.  It  is 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  that  a  philosophy  of  religion 
is  the  only  final  apologetics  for  Christianity.  .  .  .  He 
has  produced  a  work  of  great  value.  .  .  .  One  feature 
of  the  book  is  the  spirit  of  honesty,  of  fairness,  of  love 
for  straightforward  intellectual  dealing,  which  ani- 
mates what  Dr.  Sterrett  writes.  It  is  sometimes  re- 
ported that  our  theological  seminaries  are  not  favor- 
able to  intellectual  light  and  honesty.  There  will 
hardly  be  a  question  about  the  seminary  from  which 
issues  this  book  and  the  one  of  Dr.  Kedney.  Another 
feature  is  that  rare  thing  in  philosophical  writing— the 
happy  and  really  illustrative  use  of  the  dangerous 
metaphor. "  —  Prof.  John  Dewey,  in  The  Andover 
Revieiv. 

"  A  book  for  study  and  prolonged  consideration.  No 
one  call  read  it  without  receiving  much  intellectual  and 
spiritual  stimulus.  .  .  .  The  Episcopal  Church  may  well 
lay  to  heart  the  thought  that  if  the  Bishops  of  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  had  shown  a  tithe  of 
the  spirit  that  breathes  through  Dr.  Sterrett's  pages, 
there  would  never  have  been  any  Congregationalism 
either  in  England  or  America..''^— BiUiotheca  Sacra. 

"  Its  spirit  is  sanguine,  its  results  are  cheerful,  while 
its  method  of  constantly  striving  towards  the  widest 
and  most  reconciling  point  of  view  is,  after  all,  the 
eternally  best  one  ;  so  it  is  safe  to  predict  for  its  author 
a  certain  success." — The  Nation. 

"A  clear  and  intelligent  criticism  is  made  of  Hegel's 
chief  doctrines  in  a  style  remarkably  free  from  the 
mysteries  of  philosophical  language.  Heavy  and 
scholastic  phrases  are  interpreted  into  vivid  and  strik- 
ing English." — The  Boston  Journal. 


PRESS  NOTICES. 


"The  American  book  I  hold  worthy  of  a  place  be- 
side ^ Lux  MxindV  ...  It  gives  the  logical  method 
which  '  Lux  Mundi '  applies  in  a  less  technical  and  more 
popular  treatment.  They  are  studies  at  first  hand  .  .  . 
earnest  and  noble,  and  offer  noble  aid  to  thought  that 
would  climb  the  loftiest  and  most  difficult  steep  of 
knowledge.  The  path  they  trace  is  clear  to  the  peak." 
—Rev.  R.  A.  Holland,  D.D.,  in  The  Living  Church. 

•'Prof.  Sterrett  has  not  attempted  a  translation,  but 
an  analysis  with  a  lively  running  commentary,  which 
applies  the  principles  of  the  work  to  present  conditions 
and  controversies.  Dr.  Sterrett  is  always  lively  and 
readable." — The  American,  Phila. 

"A  scholarly  book,  in  which  'Hegel's  Philosophy  of 
Religion '  is  neither  rendered  nor  paraphrased,  but  an- 
alyzed and  considered  in  a  sympathetic  manner,  and 
from  an  enlightened  point  of  view." — The  Neiv  Fork 
Tribune. 

''The  author  has  worked  very  fairly  and  fully, 
without  evasion,  and  relies  upon  the  intrinsic  merit  of 
the  case.  He  makes  a  positive  addition  to  the  equip- 
ment of  the  scholar  who  wishes  to  study  Hegel." — 
Public  Opinion. 

"It  has  the  great  merits  of  luminousness  and  life. 
Dr.  Sterrett  travei'ses  much  of  the  same  ground  as  Dr. 
John  Caird,  to  whom  he  acknowledges  his  obligations  ; 
but  his  own  treatment  is  more  ample,  varied  and 
warm,  with  the  generous  ardor  of  an  earnest  disciple. 
Hence  it  will  not  only  be  an  excellent  supplement  to 
Dr.  Caird's  book,  but,  of  the  two,  it  will  be  better 
adapted  to  the  great  majority  of  readers." — The  Liter- 
ary World,  Boston. 

"  The  author  makes  the  abstruse  subject  as  intelligi- 
ble as  it  well  can  be;  in  this  succeeding  better,  we  think, 
than  did  Prof.  Caird,  to  whom  he  refers  in  a  very 
complimentary  manner." — New  York  Observer. 

"  Dr.  Sterrett  repeats,  amplifies  and  illustrates  with 
such  skill  that  the  reader  must  be  obtuse  indeed  who 
does  not  rise  from  the  volume  with  a  comparatively 
clear  notion  of  Hegel's  thought." — The  Boston  Post. 

"  My  object,  however,  is  not  to  discuss  Hegel,  but  to 
commend  to  the  readers  of  this  Revieiv  the  work  of  Dr. 
Sterrett.  It  is,  on  its  face,  a  study  of  Hegel ;  but  it  is 
something  far  better  than  this  alone.  It  is  an  introduc- 
tion to  a  form  of  theologic  thought  which  is  at  once 


PRESS  NOTICES. 


helpful  and  stimulating.  Amid  the  controversies  of 
the  time,  it  opens  a  view  of  fundamental  truth  which 
may  be  a  solvent  for  many  doubts  and  differences.  Dr. 
Sterrett's  style  is  fresh  and  often  striking."— Prof.  C. 
C.  Everett,  D.D. 

'•Dr.  Sterrett  has  given  to  the  elucidation  of  Hegel 
those,  literary  and  critical  abilities  which  make  his 
book  a  valuable  contribution  to  theology.  No  one  can 
read  it  without  profit.  Dr.  Sterrett  is  a  helpful  guide. 
He  is  careful,  honest,  frank  and  scholarly." — The 
Standard  of  the  Cross  and  the  Church. 

*'Dr.  Sterrett  proceeds  to  expound  'Hegel's  Philos- 
ophy of  Religion '  in  his  own  way— that  is,  to  American- 
ize it.  Without  making  use  of  the  German  philos- 
opher's cumbrous  terms  and  technicalities,  he  sets 
forth  his  ideas  in  clear,  forcible  modern  English.  The 
work  is  not  a  translation,  but  rather  a  transfusion." — 
The  Critic. 

*'  This  work  of  Dr.  Sterrett  deserves  the  careful  study 
of  all  thoughtful  persons  who  are  conscientiously  seek 
ing  to  find  the  ground  of  all  religion,  and  especially  the 
ground  on  which  Christianity  may  justly  claim  a  place 
above  and  apart  from  all  other  religions.  ...  In  Dr. 
Sterrett's  compact  volume  one  may  find  Hegel  sum- 
marized in  a  helpful  manner.  He  translates  important 
and  telling  passages  from  the  original,  and  supplements 
these  by  statements  and  explanations  of  his  own.  It  is 
a  great  advantage  to  this  book,  giving  it  a  superior 
claim  over  other  books  that  attempt  to  state  Hegel's 
views  on  religion,  that  its  author  is  in  sympathy  with 
the  great  thinker  whom  he  expounds.  To  the  student 
of  history,  no  less  than  to  the  student  of  philos- 
ophy and  theology,  this  book  will  commend  itself  as 
giving  the  essential  ideas  that  have  upborne  the  civili- 
zations of  the  past  and  formed  the  great  national  pur- 
poses whose  struggles  have  woven  the  texture  of  the 
world's  history."— Hon.  William  T.  Harris,  LL.D., 
U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education. 

"  To  thoughtful  inquirers  this  book  must  be  of  ines- 
timable service,  since  it  opens  the  gates  of  a  region 
where  our  deepest  questionings  find  answer.  It  would 
seem,  then,  that  it  ought  to  receive  a  cordial  welcome 
from  all  who  have  at  heart  the  interests  of  Christian 
truth."— TTie  Church  Review. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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